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POEMS. New Edition, revised. i6mo, $1.25. 

CASTILIAN DAYS. New Edition, revised. Uni- 
form with the above. i6mo, $1.25. 



HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

Boston and New York. 



PROPERTY Of THE 
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR. 

POEMS BY JOHN HAY 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1892 






Copyright, 1871, and 1890, 
By JOHN HAY. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A 
.Electrotyped and Printed by II. 0. Iloughton & Company. 



CONTENTS. 



THE PIKE COUNTY BALLADS. 

Jim Bludso - . # t g 

Little Breeches 

Banty Tim 

The Mystery of Gilgal 

Golyer 2 - 

The Pledge at Spunky Point 30 

WANDERLIEDER. 



13 
21 



39 



Sunrise in the Place de la Concorde 

The Sphinx of the Tuileries 47 

The Surrender of Spain c 

The Prayer of the Romans 54 

The Curse of Hungary q 7 

The Monks of Basle 6 t 

The Enchanted Shirt & 

A Woman's Love ... ^ 

On Pitz Languard 7 6 

Boudoir Prophecies • 78 



IV CONTENTS. 

A Triumph of Order . 80 

Ernst of Edelsheim 83 

My Castle in Spain 88 

Sister Saint Luke 93 

NEW AND OLD. 

Miles Keogh's Horse 97 

The Advance Guard .102 

Love's Prayer . . . 106 

Christine 108 

Expectation ' no 

To Flora 112 

A Haunted Room 114 

Dreams 116 

The Light of Love 117 

Quand-Meme 119 

Words 122 

The Stirrup Cup 124 

A Dream of Bric-a-Brac 126 

Liberty 135 

The White Flag 138 

The Law of Death 140 

Mount Tabor 14$ 

Religion and Doctrine 148 

Sinai and Calvary 152 

The Vision of St. Peter 155 

Israel 158 

Crows at Washington 163 



CONTENTS. V 

Remorse . . 166 

Esse Quam Videri 168 

When the Boys come Home 169 

Lese-Amour . . . 172 

Northward 175 

In the Firelight 179 

In a Graveyard 183 

The Prairie 185 

Centennial 189 

A Winter Night 195 

Student-Song 196 

How it happened '*. . .198 

God's Vengeance 201 

Too Late 203 

Love's Doubt . 206 

Lagrimas 208 

On the Bluff 210 

Una 212 

"Through the Long Days and Years" . . . .215 

A Phylactery 217 

Blondine 219 

Distichs 221 

Regardant 227 

Guy of the Temple 230 

TRANSLATIONS. 

The Way to Heaven 255 

After Heine: 

Countess Jutta . . 257 



VI CONTENTS. 

A Blessing 259 

To the Young . . . 260 

The Golden Calf 262 

The Azra 264 

Good and Bad Luck 266 

L'Amour du Mensonge . . 267 

Amor Mysticus 269 



THE PIKE COUNTY BALLADS. 



JIM BLUDSO, 

OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE. 

\^7 ALL, no! I can't tell whar he lives, 

Becase he don't live, you see ; 
Leastways, he 's got out of the habit 

Of livin' like you and me. 
Whar have you been for the last three year 

That you have n't heard folks tell 
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks 

The night of the Prairie Belle ? 

He were n't no saint, — them engineers 
Is all pretty much alike, — 



IO JIM BLUDSO. 

One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill 
And another one here, in Pike \* 

A keerless man in his talk was Jim, 
And an awkward hand in a row, 

But he never flunked, and he never lied, — 
I reckon he never knowed how. 

And this was all the religion he had, — » 

To treat his engine well ; 
Never be passed on the river 

To mind the pilot's bell ; 
And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire, — 

A thousand times he swore, 
He 'd hold her nozzle agin the bank 

Till the last soul got ashore. 

All boats has their day on the Mississip, 
And her day come at last, — 



JIM BLUDSO. II 

The Movastar was a better boat, 

But the Belle she wouldn't be passed. 

And so she come tearm' along that night — 
The oldest craft on the line — 

With a nigger squat on her safety-valve, 
And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine. 

The fire bust out as she clared the bar, 

And burnt a hole in the night, 
And quick as a flash she turned, and made 

For that wilier-bank on the right. 
There was runnin' and eursin', but Jim yelled out, 

Over all the infernal roar, 
" I '11 hold her nozzle agin the bank 

Till the last galoot 's ashore." 

Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat 
Jim Bludso's voice was heard, 



12 JIM BLUDSO. 

And they all had trust in his cussedness, 
And knowed he would keep his word. 

And, sure 's you 're born, they all got off 
Afore the smokestacks fell, — 

And Bludso's ghost went up alone 
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle. 

He were n't no saint, — but at jedgment 

I 'd run my chance with Jim, 
'Longside of some pious gentlemen 

That would n't shook hands with him. 
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing, — 

And went for it thar and then ; 
And Christ ain't a going to be too hard 

On a man that died for men. 



LITTLE BREECHES. 

T DON'T go much on religion, 

I never ain't had no show ; 
But I 've got a middlin' tight grip, sir, 

On the handful o' things I know. 
I don't pan out on the prophets 

And free-will, and that sort of thing, - 
But I b'lieve in God and the angels, 

Ever sence one night last spring. 

I come into town with some turnips, 
And my little Gabe come along, — 

No four-year-old in the county 

Could beat him for pretty and strong, 



14 LITTLE BREECHES. 

Peart and chipper and sassy, 

Always ready to swear and fight, — 

And I 'd larnt him to chaw terbacker 
Jest to keep his milk-teeth white. 

The snow come down like a blanket 

As I passed by Taggart's store ; 
I went in for a jug of molasses 

And left the team at the door. 
They scared at something and started, 

I heard one little squall, 
And hell-to-split over the prairie 

Went team, Little Breeches and all. 

Hell-to-split over the prairie ! 

I was almost froze with skeer ; 
But we rousted up some torches, 

And sarched for 'em far and near. 



LITTLE BREECHES. 1 5 

At last we struck hosses and wagon, 
Snowed under a soft white mound, 

Upsot, dead beat, — but of little Gabe 
No hide nor hair was found. 

And here all hope soured on me, 

Of my fellow-critter's aid, — 
I jest flopped down on my marrow-bones, 

Crotch-deep in the snow, and prayed. 

By this, the torches w r as played out, 

And me and Isrul Parr 
Went off for some wood to a sheepfold 

That he said was somewhar thar. 

We found it at last, and a little shed 
Where they shut up the lambs at night. 



l6 LITTLE BREECHES. 

We looked in and seen them huddled thar, 
So warm and sleepy and white ; 

And thar sot Little Breeches and chirped, 
As peart as ever you see, 

" I want a chaw of terbacker, 

And that 's what 's the matter of me." 

How did he git thar ? Angels. 

He could never have walked in that storm ; 
They jest scooped down and toted him 

To whar it was safe and warm. 
And I think that saving a little child, 

And fotching him to his own, 
Is a dernecl sight better business 

Than loafing around The Throne. 



BANTY TIM. 

(remarks of sergeant tilmon joy to the white man's 
committee of spunky point, illinois.) 

T RECKON I git your drift, gents,— 

You 'low the boy sha' n't stay ; 
This is a white man's country ; 

You 're Dimocrats, you say ; 
And whereas, and seein', and wherefore, 

The times bein' all out o' j'int, 
The nigger has got to mosey 

From the limits o' Spunky P'int ! 



Le's reason the thing a minute : 
I 'm an old-fashioned Dimocrat too, 



1 8 BANTY TIM. 

Though I laid my politics out o' the way 
For to keep till the war was through. 

But I come back here, allowin' 
To vote as I used to do, 

Though it gravels me like the devil to train 
Along o' sich fools as you. 

Now dog my cats ef I kin see, 

In all the light of the day, 
What you 've got to do with the question 

Ef Tim shill go or stay. 
And furder than that I give notice, 

Ef one of you tetches the boy, 
He kin check his trunks to a warmer clime 

Than he '11 find in Illanoy. 

Why, blame your hearts, jest hear me ! 
You know that ungodly day 



BANTY TIM. 19 

When our left struck Vicksburg Heights, how ripped 

And torn and tattered we lay. 
When the rest retreated I stayed behind, 

Fur reasons sufficient to me, — 
With a rib caved in, and a leg on a strike, 

I sprawled on that cursed glacee. 

Lord ! how the hot sun went for us, 

And br'iled and blistered and burned ! 
How the Rebel bullets whizzed round us 

When a cuss in his death-grip turned ! 
Till along toward dusk I seen a thing 

I could n't believe for a spell : 
That nigger — that Tim — was a crawlin' to me 

Through that fire-proof, gilt-edged hell ! 

The Rebels seen him as quick as me, 
And the bullets buzzed like bees ; 



20 BANTY TIM. 

But he jumped for me, and shouldered me, 

Though a shot brought him once to his knees ; 

But he staggered up, and packed me off, 
With a dozen stumbles and fells, 

Till safe in our lines he drapped us both, 
His black hide riddled with balls. 

So, my gentle gazelles, thar 's my answer, 

And here stays Banty Tim : 
He trumped Death's ace for me that day, 

And I 'm not goin' back on him ! 
You may rezoloot till the cows come home. 

But ef one of you tetches the boy, 
He '11 wrastle his hash to-night in hell, 

Or my name 's not Tilmon Joy ! 



THE MYSTERY OF GILGAL. 

*T"^HE darkest, strangest mystery 

I ever read, or heern, or see, 
Is 'long of a drink at Taggart's Hall, — * 
Tom Taggart's of Gilgal. 

I Ve heern the tale a thousand ways, 
But never could git through the maze 
That hangs around that queer day's doin's; 
But 1 11 tell the yarn to youans. 

Tom Taggart stood behind his bar, 
The time was fall, the skies was fa'r, 
The neighbors round the counter drawed, 
And ca'mly drinked and jawed. 



22 THE MYSTERY OF GILGAL. 

At last come Colonel Blood of Pike, 
And old Jedge Phinn, permiscus-likej 
And each, as he meandered in, 
Remarked, " A whisky-skin " 

Tom mixed the beverage full and fa'r, 
And slammed it, smoking, on the bar. 
Some says three fingers, some says two,—* 
I '11 leave the choice to you. 

Phinn to the drink put forth his hand ; 
Blood drawed his knife, with accent bland, 
" I ax yer parding, Mister Phinn — 
Jest drap that whisky-skin." 

No man high-toneder could be found 
Than old Jedge Phinn the country round. 



THE MYSTERY OF GILGAL. 23 

Says he, " Young man, the tribe of Phinns 
Knows their own whisky-skins ! " 

He went for his 'leven-inch bowie-knife : — 
" I tries to foller a Christian life ; 
But I '11 drap a slice of liver or two, 
My bloomin shrub, with you." 

They carved in a way tha 1 : all admired, 
Tell Blood drawed iron at last, and fired. 
It took Seth Bludso 'twixt the eyes, 
Which caused him great surprise. 

Then coats went off, and all went in ; 
Shots and bad language swelled the din ; 
The short, sharp bark of Derringers, 
Like bull-pups, cheered the furse. 



24 THE MYSTERY OF GILGAL. 

They piled the stiffs outside the door; 
They made, I reckon, a cord or more. 
Girls went that winter, as a rule, 
Alone to spellin'-school. 

I Ve sarched in vain, from Dan to Beer- 
Sheba, to make this mystery clear ; 
But I end with hit as I did begin, — 
Who got the whisky-skin ? " 



GOLYER. 

I "F the way a man lights out of this world 
Helps fix his heft for the other sp'ere, 
I reckon my old friend Golyer's Ben 
Will lay over lots of likelier men 
For one thing he done down here. 

You did n't know Ben ? He driv a stage 

On the line they called the Old Sou'-west ; 
He wa'n't the best man that ever you seen, 
And he wa'n't so ungodly pizen mean, — 
No better nor worse than the rest. 

He was hard on women and rough on his friends ; 
And he did n't have many, I '11 let you know ; 



26 GOLYER. 

He hated a dog and disgusted a cat, 
But he'd run off his legs for a motherless brat, 
And I guess there's many jess so. 

I Ve seed my sheer of the run of things, 

I Ve hoofed it a many and many a miled, 
But I never seed nothing that could or can 
Jest git all the good from the heart of a man 
Like the hands of a little child. 

Well ! this young one I started to tell you about, — 
His folks was all dead, I was fetchin' him 
through, — 
He was just at the age that's loudest for boys, 
And he blowed such a horn with his sarchin' small 
voice, 
We called him "the Little Boy Blue." 



GOLYER. 27 

He ketched a sight of Ben on the box, 

And you bet he bawled and kicked and howled, 

For to git 'long of Ben, and ride thar too ; 

I tried to tell him it would n't do, 
When suddingly Golyer growled, 

"What's the use of making the young one cry? 

Say, what 's the use of being a fool ? 
Sling the little one up here whar he can see, 
He won't git the snuffles a-ridin' with me, — 

The night ain't any too cool." 

The child hushed cryin' the minute he spoke ; 

"Come up here, Major! don't let him slip." 
And jest as nice as a woman could do, 
He wropped his blanket around them two, 

And was off in the crack of a whip. 



28 GOLYER. 

We rattled along an hour or so, 

Till we heerd a yell on the still night air. 
Did you ever hear an Apache yell ? 
Well, ye need n't want to, this side of hell ; 

There's nothing more devilish there. 

Caught in the shower of lead and flint 

We felt the old stage stagger and plunge; 
Then we heerd the voice and the whip of Ben, 
As he gethered his critters up again, 
And tore away with a lunge. 

The passengers laughed. " Old Ben 's all right, 

He 's druv five year and never was struck." 
"Now if I'd been thar, as sure as you live, 
They 'd 'a' plugged me with holes as thick as a 
sieve ; 
It 's the reg'lar Golyer luck." 



GOLYER. 29 

Over hill and holler and ford and creek 

Jest like the hosses had wings, we tore; 
We got to Looney's, and Ben come in 
And laid down the baby and axed for his gin, 
And dropped in a heap on the floor. 

Said he, u When they fired, I kivered the kid, — 

Although I ain't pretty, I 'm middlin' broad ; 
And look ! he ain't fazed by arrow nor ball, — 
Thank God ! my own carcase stopped them all." 
Then we seen his eye glaze, and his lower jaw 
fall, — 
And he carried his thanks to God. 



THE PLEDGE AT SPUNKY POINT. 

A TALE OF EARNEST EFFORT AND HUMAN PERFIDY. 

TT'S all very well for preachin', 

But preachin' and practice don't gee : 
I Ve give the thing a fair trial, 

And you can't ring it in on me. 
So toddle along with your pledge, Squire, 

Ef that 's what you want me to sign ; 
Betwixt me and you, IVe been thar, 

And I'll not take any in mine. 

A year ago last Fo'th July 

A lot of the boys was here. 
We all got corned and signed the pledge 

For to drink no more that year. 



THE PLEDGE AT SPUNKY POINT. 3 1 

There was Tilman Joy and Sheriff McPhail 

And me and Abner Fry, 
And Shelby's boy Leviticus 

And the Golyers, Luke and Cy. 

And we anteed up a hundred 

In the hands of Deacon Kedge 
For to be divided the follerin' Fo'th 

'Mongst the boys that kep' the pledge. 
And we knowed each other so well, Squire, 

You may take my scalp for a fool, 
Ef every man when he signed his name 

Didn't feel cock-sure of the pool. 

Fur a while it all went lovely ; 

We put up a job next day 
Fur to make Joy b'lieve his wife was dead, 

And he went home middlin' gay ; 



32 THE PLEDGE AT SPUNKY POINT. 

Then Abner Fry he killed a man 

And afore he was hung McPhail 
Jest bilked the widder outen her sheer 

By getting him slewed in jail. 

But Chris'mas scooped the Sheriff, 

The egg-nogs gethered him in; 
And Shelby's boy Leviticus 

Was, New Year's, tight as sin ; 
And along in March the Golyers 

Got so drunk that a fresh-biled owl 
Would V looked long-side o' them two young 
men, 

Like a sober temperance fowl. 

Four months alone I walked the chalk, 
I thought my heart would break ; 



THE PLEDGE AT SPUNKY POINT. 33 

And all them boys a-slappin* my back 

And axin', " What '11 you take?" 
I never slep* without dreamin' dreams 

Of Burbin, Peach, or Rye, 
But I chawed at my niggerhead and swore 

I'd rake that pool or die. 

At last — the Fo'th — I humped myself 

Through chores and breakfast soon, 
Then scooted down to Taggarts' store — 

For the pledge was off at noon ; 
And all the boys was gethered thar, 

And each man hilt his glass — 
Watchin' me and the clock quite solemn-like 

Fur to see the last minute pass. 

The clock struck twelve! I raised the jug 
And took one lovin' pull — 



34 THE PLEDGE AT SPUNKY POINT. 

I was holler clar from skull to boots, 

It seemed I could n't git full. 
But I was roused by a fiendish laugh 

That might have raised the dead — 

Them ornary sneaks had sot the clock 
A half an hour ahead ! 

"All right !" I squawked. "You've got me, 

Jest order your drinks agin, 
And we '11 paddle up to the Deacon's 

And scoop the ante in." 
But when we got to Kedge's, 

What a sight was that we saw ! 
The Deacon and Parson Skeeters 

In the tail of a game of Draw. 

They had shook 'em the heft of the mornin', 
The Parson's luck was fa'r, 



THE PLEDGE AT SPUNKY POINT. 35 

And he raked, the minute we got thar, 

The last of our pool on a pa'r. 
So toddle along with your pledge, Squire, 

I 'low it's all very fine, 
But ez fur myself, I thank ye, 

I '11 not take any in mine. 



WANDERLIEDER. 



SUNRISE IN THE PLACE DE LA 
CONCORDE. 

(PARIS, AUGUST, 1 865.) 

T STAND at the break of day 

In the Champs Elysees. 
The tremulous shafts of dawning 
As they shoot o'er the Tuileries early, 
Strike Luxor's cold gray spire, 
And wild in the light of the morning 
With their marble manes on fire, 
Ramp the white Horses of Marly. 

But the Place of Concord lies 
Dead hushed 'neath the ashy skies. 



40 SUNRISE IN THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE. 

And the Cities sit in council 

With sleep in their wide stone eyes. 

I see the mystic plain 

Where the army of spectres slain 

In the Emperors life-long war 

March on with unsounding tread 

To trumpets whose voice is dead. 

Their spectral chief still leads them, — 

The ghostly flash of his sword 

Like a comet through mist shines far, — 

And the noiseless host is poured, 

For the gendarme never heeds them, 

Up the long dim road where thundered 

The army of Italy onward 

Through the great pale Arch of the Star ! 

The spectre army fades 
Far up the glimmering hill, 



SUNRISE IN THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE 4 1 

But, vaguely lingering still, 

A group of shuddering shades 

Infects the pallid air, 

Growing dimmer as day invades 

The hush of the dusky square. 

There is one that seems a King, 

As if the ghost of a Crown 

Still shadowed his jail-bleached hair ; 

I can hear the guillotine ring, 

As its regicide note rang there, 

When he laid his tired life down 

And grew brave in his last despair. 

And a woman frail and fair 

Who weeps at leaving a world 

Of love and revel and sin 

In the vast Unknown to be hurled ; 

(For life was wicked and sweet 



42 SUNRISE IN THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE. 

With kings at her small white feet ! ) 
And one, every inch a Queen, 
In life and in death a Queen, 
Whose blood baptized the place, 
In the days of madness and fear, — 
Her shade has never a peer 
In majesty and grace. 

Murdered and murderers swarm ; 

Slayers that slew and were slain, 

Till the drenched place smoked with the rain 

That poured in a torrent warm, — 

Till red as the Rider's of Edom 

Were splashed the white garments of Freedom 

With the wash of the horrible storm ! 

And Liberty's hands were not clean 
In the day of her pride unchained, 



SUNRISE IN THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE. 43 

Her royal hands were stained 

With the life of a King and Queen ; 

And darker than that with the blood 

Of the nameless brave and good 

Whose blood in witness clings 

More damning than Queens' and Kings, 

Has she not paid it dearly ? 

Chained, watching her chosen nation 

Grinding late and early 

In the mills of usurpation ? 

Have not her holy tears 

Flowing through shameful years, 

Washed the stains from her tortured hands ? 

We thought so when God's fresh breeze, 

Blowing over the sleeping lands, 

In 'Forty- Eight waked the world, 



44 SUNRISE IN THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE. 

And the Burgher-King was hurled 
From that palace behind the trees. 

As Freedom with eyes aglow 

Smiled glad through her childbirth pain, 

How was the mother to know 

That her woe and travail were vain ? 

A smirking servant smiled 

When she gave him her child to keep ; 

Did she know he would strangle the child 

As it lay in his arms asleep ? 

Liberty's cruellest shame ! 
She is stunned and speechless yet. 
In her grief and bloody sweat 
Shall we make her trust her blame ? 
The treasure of 'Forty-Eight 



SUNRISE IN THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE. 45 

A lurking jail-bird stole, 
She can but watch and wait 
As the swift sure seasons roll. 

And when in God's good hour 

Comes the time of the brave and true, 

Freedom again shall rise 

With a blaze in her awful eyes 

That shall wither this robber-power 

As the sun now dries the dew. 

This Place shall roar with the voice 

Of the glad triumphant people, 

And the heavens be gay with the chimes 

Ringing with jubilant noise 

From every clamorous steeple 

The coming of better times. 

And the dawn of Freedom waking 



46 SUNRISE IN THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE. 

Shall fling its splendors far 
Like the day which now is breaking 
On the great pale Arch of the Star, 
And back o'er the town shall fly, 
While the joy-bells wild are ringing, 
To crown the Glory springing 
From the Column of July ! 



THE SPHINX OF THE TUILERIES. 

r\UT of the Latin Quarter 

I came to the lofty door 
Where the two marble Sphinxes guard 

The Pavilion de Flore. 
Two Cockneys stood by the gate, and one 

Observed, as they turned to go, . 
" No wonder He likes that sort of thing, — 

He 's a Sphinx himself, you know." 

I thought as I walked where the garden glowed 

In the sunset's level fire, 
Of the Charlatan whom the Frenchmen loathe 

And the Cockneys all admire. 



48 THE SPHINX OF THE TUILERIEs! 

They call him a Sphinx, — it pleases him, — 

And if we narrowly read, 
We will find some truth in the flunkey's praise, 

The man is a Sphinx indeed. 

For the Sphinx with breast of woman 

And face so debonair 
Had the sleek false paws of a lion, 

That could furtively seize and tear. 
So far to the shoulders, — but if you took 

The Beast in reverse you would find 
The ignoble form of a craven cur 

Was all that lay behind. 

She lived by giving to simple folk 

A silly riddle to read, 
And when they failed she drank their blood 

In cruel and ravenous greed. 



THE SPHINX OF THE TUILERIES. 49 

But at last came one who knew her word, 
And she perished in pain and shame, — 

This bastard Sphinx leads the same base life 
And his end will be the same. 

For an CEdipus-People is coming fast 

With swelled feet limping on, 
If they shout his true name once aloud 

His false foul power is gone. 
Afraid to fight and afraid to fly, 

He cowers in an abject shiver ; 
The people will come to their own at last, — - 

God is not mocked forever. 



THE SURRENDER OF SPAIN. 

i. 
T AND of unconquered Pelayo ! land of the Cid 

Campeador ! 
Sea-girdled mother of men ! Spain, name of glory 

and power ; 
Cradle of world-grasping Emperors, grave of the 

reckless invader, 
How art thou fallen, my Spain ! how art thou sunk 

at this hour ! 

ii. 

Once thy magnanimous sons trod, victors, the por- 
tals of Asia, 

Once the Pacific waves rushed, joyful thy banners 
to see ; 



THE SURRENDER OF SPAIN. 5 1 

For it was Trajan that carried the battle-flushed 

eagles to Dacia, 

Cortes that planted thy flag fast by the uttermost 

sea. 

in. 

Has thou forgotten those days illumined with glory 
and honor, 

When the far isles of the sea thrilled to the tread 
of Castile ? 

When every land under Heaven was flecked by 
the shade of thy banner, — 

When every beam of the sun flashed on thy con- 
quering steel ? 

IV. 

Then through red fields of slaughter, through death 

and defeat and disaster, 
Still flared thy banner aloft, tattered, but free from 

a stain, — 



52 THE SURRENDER OF SPAIN. 

Now to the upstart Savoyard thou bendest to beg 

for a master ! 
How the red flush of her shame mars the proud 

beauty of Spain ! 

v. 

Has the red blood run cold that boiled by the 
Xenil and Darro ? 

Are the high deeds of the sires sung to the chil- 
dren no more ? 

On the dun hills of the North hast thou heard of 
no plough-boy Pizarro ? 

Roams no young swine-herd Cortes hid by the 
Tagus' wild shore ? 

VI. 

Once again does Hispania bend low to the yoke 

of the stranger ! 
Once again will she rise, flinging her gyves in the 

sea ! 



THE SURRENDER OF SPAIN. 53 

Princeling of Piedmont! unwitting thou weddest 

with doubt and with danger, 
King over men who have learned all that it costs 

to be free. 



THE PRAYER OF THE ROMANS. 

AT OT done, but near its ending, 

Is the work that our eyes desired ; 
Not yet fulfilled, but near the goal, 

Is the hope that our worn hearts fired. 
And on the Alban Mountains, 

Where the blushes of dawn increase, 
We see the flash of the beautiful feet 

Of Freedom and of Peace ! 

How long were our fond dreams baffled ! - 

Novara's sad mischance, 
The Kaiser's sword and fetter-lock, 

And the traitor stab of France ; 



THE PRAYER OF THE ROMANS. 55 

Till at last came glorious Venice, 

In storm and tempest home ; 
And now God maddens the greedy kings, 

And gives to her people Rome. 

Lame Lion of Caprera ! 

Red-shirts of the lost campaigns ! 
Not idly shed was the costly blood 

You poured from generous veins. 
For the shame of Aspromonte, 

And the stain of Mentana's sod, 
But forged the curse of kings that sprang 

From your breaking hearts to God ! 

We lift our souls to thee, O Lord 

Of Liberty and of Light ! 
Let not earth's kings pollute the work 

That was done in their despite ; 



56 THE PRAYER OF THE ROMANS. 

Let not thy light be darkened 
In the shade of a sordid crown, 

Nor pampered swine devour the fruit 
Thou shook'st with an earthquake down ! 

Let the People come to their birthright, 

And crosier and crown pass away- 
Like phantasms that flit o'er the marshes 

At the glance of the clean, white day. 
And then from the lava of ^Etna 

To the ice of the Alps let there be 
One freedom, one faith without fetters, 

One republic in Italy free ! 



THE CURSE OF HUNGARY. 

T/ 7 " ING Saloman looked from his donjon bars, 

Where the Danube clamors through sedge 
and sand, 
And he cursed with a curse his revolting land, — 
With a king's deep curse of treason and wars. 

He said : " May this false land know no truth ! 

May the good hearts die and the bad ones flour- 
ish, 

And a greed of glory but live to nourish 
Envy and hate in its restless youth. 

" In the barren soil may the ploughshare rust, 
While the sword grows bright with its fatal labor, 



58 THE CURSE OF HUNGARY. 

And blackens between each man and neighbor 
The perilous cloud of a vague distrust ! 

"Be the noble idle, the peasant in thrall, 
And each to the other as unknown things, 
That with links of hatred and pride the kings 

May forge firm fetters through each for all ! 

" May a king wrong them as they wronged their king ! 
May he wring their hearts as they wrung mine, 
Till they pour their blood for his revels like wine, 

And to women and monks their birthright fling ! " 

The mad king died ; but the rushing river 

Still brawls by the spot where his donjon stands, 
And its swift waves sigh to the conscious sands 

That the curse of King Saloman works forever. 



THE CURSE OF HUNGARY. 59 

For flowing by Pressbourg they heard the cheers 
Ring out from the leal and cheated hearts 
That were caught and chained by Theresa's arts, — 

A man's cool head and a girl's hot tears ! 

And a star, scarce risen, they saw decline, 
Where Orsova's hills looked coldly down, 
As Kossuth buried the Iron Crown 

And fled in the dark to the Turkish line. 

And latest they saw in the summer glare 
The Magyar nobles in pomp arrayed, 
To shout as they saw, with his unfleshed blade, 

A Hapsburg beating the harmless air. 

But ever the same sad play they saw, 

The same weak worship of sword and crown, 



60 THE CURSE OF HUNGARY. 

The noble crushing the humble down, 
And moulding Wrong to a monstrous Law. 

The donjon stands by the turbid river, 

But Time is crumbling its battered towers ; 
And the slow light withers a despot's powers, 

And a mad king's curse is not forever ! 



THE MONKS OF BASLE. 

TORE this weed from the rank, dark soil 
Where it grew in the monkish time, 
I trimmed it close and set it again 
In a border of modern rhyme. 

I. 

Long years ago, when the Devil was loose 

And faith was sorely tried, 
Three monks of Basle went out to walk 

In the quiet eventide. 

A breeze as pure as the breath of Heaven 
Blew fresh through the cloister-shades, 



62 THE MONKS OF BASLE. 

A sky as glad as the smile of Heaven 
Blushed rose o'er the minster-glades. 

But scorning the lures of summer and sense, 
The monks passed on in their walk j 

Their eyes were abased, their senses slept, 
Their souls were in their talk. 

In the tough grim talk of the monkish days 
They hammered and slashed about, — 

Dry husks of logic, — old scraps of creed, — 
And the cold gray dreams of doubt, — 

And whether Just or Justified 

Was the Church's mystic Head, — 

And whether the Bread was changed to God, 
Or God became the Bread. 



THE MONKS OF BASLE. 6$ 

But of human hearts outside their walls 

# 

They never paused to dream, 
And they never thought of the love of God 
That smiled in the twilight gleam. 

ii. 

As these three monks went bickering on 

By the foot of a spreading tree, 
Out from its heart of verdurous gloom 

A song burst wild and free, — 

A wordless carol of life and love, 

Of nature free and wild ; 
And the three monks paused in the evening shade 

Looked up at each other and smiled. 

A.nd tender and gay the bird sang on, 
And cooed and whistled and trilled, 



64 THE MONKS OF BASLE. 



And the wasteful wealth of life and love 
From his happy heart was spilled. 



The song had power on the grim old monks 

In the light of the rosy skies ; 
And as they listened the years rolled back, 

And tears came into their eyes. 

The years rolled back and they were young, 
With the hearts and hopes of men, 

They plucked the daisies and kissed the girls 
Of dear dead summers again. 

in. 

But the eldest monk soon broke the spell; 

" 'T is sin and shame," quoth he, 
" To be turned from talk of holy things 

By a bird's cry from a tree. 



THE MONKS OF BASLE. gj- 

" Perchance the Enemy of Souls 

Hath come to tempt us so. 
Let us try by the power of the Awful Word 

If it be he, or no ! " 

To Heaven the three monks raised their hands ; 

" We charge thee, speak ! " they said, 
"By His dread Name who shall one day come 

To judge the quick and the dead, — 

" Who art thou ? Speak ! " The bird laughed loud 

"I am the Devil," he said. 
The monks on their faces fell, the bird 

Away through the twilight sped. 

A horror fell on those holy men, 
(The faithful legends say,) 



66 THE MONKS OF BASLE. 

And one by one from the face of earth 
They pined and vanished away. 

IV. 

So goes the tale of the monkish books, 
The moral who runs may read, — 

He has no ears for Nature's voice 
Whose soul is the slave of creed. 

Not all in vain with beauty and love 
Has God the world adorned ; 

And he who Nature scorns and mocks, 
By Nature is mocked and scorned. 



THE ENCHANTED SHIRT. 

Fytte the First : wherein it shall be shown hozv the Truth is toe vi'ghty 
a Drug for such as be of feeble temper. 

r I ^HE King was sick. His cheek was red 

And his eye was clear and bright ; 
He ate and drank with a kingly zest, 
And peacefully snored at night. 

But he said he was sick, and a king should know, 

And doctors came by the score. 
They did not cure him. He cut off their heads 

And sent to the schools for more. 

At last two famous doctors came, 
And one was as poor as a rat, — 



68 THE ENCHANTED SHIRTo 

He had passed his life in studious toil, 
And never found time to grow fat. 

The other had never looked in a book ; 

His patients gave him no trouble, 
If they recovered they paid him well, 

If they died their heirs paid double. 

Together they looked at the royal tongue, 
As the King on his couch reclined ; 

In succession they thumped his august chest, 
But no trace of disease could find. 

The old sage said, " You 're as sound as a nut." 
" Hang him up," roared the King in a gale, — 

In a ten-knot gale of royal rage ; 
The other leech grew a shade pale ; 



THE ENCHANTED SHIRT. 69 

But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose, 

And thus his prescription ran, — 
The King will be well, if he sleeps one night 

In the Shirt of a Happy Man. 



Fytte the Second : tells of the search for the Shirt and how it was 
nigh found but was not \ for reasons which are said or sung. 

Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode, 

And fast their horses ran, 
And many they saw, and to many they spoke, 

But they found no Happy Man, 

They found poor men who would fain be rich, 
And rich who thought they were poor ; 

And men who twisted their waists in stays, 
And women that shorthose wore. 



JO THE ENCHANTED SHIRT. 

They saw two men by the roadside sit, 

And both bemoaned their lot ; 
For one had buried his wife, he said, 

And the other one had not. 

At last as they came to a village gate, 

A beggar lay whistling there ; 
He whistled and sang and laughed and rolled 

On the grass in the soft June air. 

The weary couriers paused and looked 

At the scamp so blithe and gay ; 
And one of them said, " Heaven save you, friend ! 

You seem to be happy to-day." 

" O yes, fair sirs," the rascal laughed 
And his voice rang free and glad, 



THE ENCHANTED SHIRT. 71 

"An idle man has so much to do 
That he never has time to be sad." 

" This is our man," the courier said ; 

" Our luck has led us aright. 
"I will give you a hundred ducats, friend, 

For the loan of your shirt to-night." 

The merry blackguard lay back on the grass, 
And laughed till his face was black ; 

11 1 would do it, God wot," and he roared with the fun, 
" But I have n't a shirt to my back." 



Fytte the Third : shewing how His Majesty the King came at last to 
sleep in a Happy Man his Shirt. 

Each day to the King the reports came in 
Of his unsuccessful spies, 



72 THE ENCHANTED SHIRT. 

And the sad panorama of human woes 
Passed daily under his eyes. 



And he grew ashamed of his useless life, 
And his maladies hatched in gloom ; 

He opened his windows and let the air 
Of the free heaven into his room. 

And out he went in the world and toiled 

In his own appointed way ; 
And the people blessed him, the land was glad, 

And the King was well and gay. 



A WOMAN'S LOVE. 

A SENTINEL angel sitting high in glory 

Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory ; 
" Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story ! 

* I loved, — and, blind with passionate love, I fell. 
Love brought me down to death, and death to Hell. 
For God is just, and death for sin is well. 

" I do not rage against his high decree, 
Nor for myself do ask that grace shall be ; 
But for my love on earth who mourns for me. 



74 A WOMAN'S LOVE. 

" Great Spirit ! Let me see my love again 
And comfort him one hour, and I were fain 
To pay a thousand years of fire and pain." 

Then said the pitying angel, " Nay, repent 
That wild vow ! Look, the dial-finger 's bent 
Down to the last hour of thy punishment ! " 

But still she wailed, " I pray thee, let me go ! 
I cannot rise to peace and leave him so. 
O, let me soothe him in his bitter woe ! " 

The brazen gates ground sullenly ajar, 
And upward, joyous, like a rising star, 
She rose and vanished in the ether far. 

But soon adown the dying sunset sailing, 
And like a wounded bird her pinions trailing, 
She fluttered back, with broken-hearted wailing. 



A WOMAN'S LOVE. 75 

She sobbed, " I found him by the summer sea 
Reclined, his head upon a maiden s knee, — 
She curled his hair and kissed him. Woe is me ! " 

She wept, " Now let my punishment begin ! 
I have been fond and foolish. Let me in 
To expiate my sorrow and my sin." 

The angel answered, " Nay, sad soul, go higher ! 
To be deceived in your true heart's desire 
Was bitterer than a thousand years of fire ! " 



ON PITZ LANGUARD. 

T STOOD on the top of Pitz Languard, 

And heard three voices whispering low, 
Where the Alpine birds in their circling ward 
Made swift dark shadows upon the snow. 

First voice. 
I loved a girl with truth and pain, 

She loved me not. When she said good by 
She gave me a kiss to sting and stain 

My broken life to a rosy dye. 

Second voice. 
I loved a woman with love well tried, — 
And I swear I believe she loves me still. 



ON PITZ LANGUARD. JJ 

But it was not I who stood by her side 

When she answered the priest and said " I will." 

Third voice. 
I loved two girls, one fond, one shy, 

And I never divined which one loved me. m 
One married, and now, though I can't tell why, 

Of the four in the story I count but three. 

The three weird voices whispered low 

Where the eagles swept in their circling ward ; 

But only one shadow scarred the snow 
As I clambered down from Pitz Languard. 



BOUDOIR PROPHECIES. 

/^~"\NE day in the Tuileries, 

When a southwest Spanish breeze 
Brought scandalous news of the Queen, 
The fair proud Empress said, 
" My good friend loses her head ; 
If .matters go on this way, 
I shall see her shopping, some day, 
In the Boulevard des Capucines." 

The saying swiftly went 
To the Place of the Orient, 

And the stout Queen sneered, " Ah, well ! 

You are proud and prude, ma belle ! 



BOUDOIR PROPHECIES. 79 

But I think I will hazard a guess 
I shall see you one day playing chess 
With the Cure of Carabanchel." 

Both ladies, though not over-wise, 
Were lucky in prophecies. 

For the Boulevard shopmen well 

Know the form of stout Isabel 
As she buys her modes de Paris; 
And after Sedan in despair 
The Empress prude and fair 
Went to visit Madame sa Mere 

In her villa at Carabanchel — 

But the Queen was not there to see, 



A TRIUMPH OF ORDER. 

A SQUAD of regular infantry 

In the Commune's closing days, 
Had captured a crowd of rebels 
By the wall of Pere-la-Chaise. 

There were desperate men, wild women, 

And dark-eyed Amazon girls, 
And one little boy, with a peach-down cheek 

And yellow clustering curls. 

The captain seized the little waif, 
And said, "What dost thou here?" 

" Sapristi, Citizen captain ! 

I 'm a Communist, my dear ! n 



A TRIUMPH OF ORDER. 8 1 

"Very well! Then you die with the others ! " 
— "Very well! That's my affair; 

But first let me take to my mother, 
Who lives by the wine-shop there, 

u My father's watch. You see it ; 

A gay old thing, is it not ? 
It would please the old lady to have it, 

Then I '11 come back here, and be shot/' 

"That is the last we shall see of him," 

The grizzled captain grinned, 
As the little man skimmed down the hill, 

Like a swallow down the wind. 

For the joy of killing had lost its zest 
In the glut of those awful days, 



82 A TRIUMPH OF ORDER. 

And Death writhed, gorged like a greedy snake, 
From the Arch to Pere-la-Chaise. 

But before the last platoon had fired, 
The child's shrill voice was heard ; 

" Houp-la ! the old girl made such a row 
I feared I should break my word." 

Against the bullet-pitted wall 

He took his place with the rest, 
A button was lost from his ragged blouse, 

Which showed his soft white breast. 

" Now bkze away, my children ! 

With your little one-two-three ! " 
The Chassepots tore the stout young heart, 

And saved Society. 



ERNST OF EDELSHEIM. 

T 'LL tell the story, kissing 

This white hand for my pains : 
No sweeter heart, nor falser 
E'er filled such fine, blue veins. 

I '11 sing a song of true love, 

My Lilith dear ! to you ; 
Contraria contrariis — 

The rule is old and true. 

The happiest of all lovers 

Was Ernst of Edelsheim ; 
And why he was the happiest, 

I '11 tell you in my rhyme. 



84 ERNST OF EDELSHEIM. 

One summer night he wandered 

Within a lonely glade, 
And, couched in moss and moonlight, 

He found a sleeping maid. 

The stars of midnight sifted 
Above her sands of gold ; 

She seemed a slumbering statue, 
So fair and white and cold. 

Fair and white and cold she lay 
Beneath the starry skies ; 

Rosy was her waking 

Beneath the Ritters eyes. 

He won her drowsy fancy, 
He bore her to his towers, 



ERNST OF EDELSHEIM. 85 

Apd swift with love and laughter 
Flew morning's purpled hours. 

But when the thickening sunbeams 
Had drunk the gleaming dew, 

A misty cloud of sorrow 

Swept o'er her eyes' deep blue. 

She hung upon the Ritter's neck, 
She wept with love and pain, 

She showered her sweet, warm kisses 
Like fragrant summer rain. 

"I am no Christian soul," she sobbed, 

As in his arms she lay ; 
" I 'm half the day a woman, 

A serpent half the day. 



86 ERNST OF EDELSHEIM. 

"And when from yonder bell-tower 
Rings out the noonday chime, 
Farewell ! farewell forever, 
Sir Ernst of Edelsheim ! " 

11 Ah ! not farewell forever ! " 

The Ritter wildly cried, 
"I will be saved or lost with thee. 

My lovely Wili-Bride ! " 

Loud from the lordly bell-tower 
Rang out the noon of day, 

And from the bower of roses 
A serpent slid away. 

But when the mid-watch moonlight 
Was shimmering through the grove, 



ERNST OF EDELSHEIM. 8? 

He clasped his bride thrice dowered 
With beauty and with love. 

The happiest of all lovers 

Was Ernst of Edelsheim — 
His true love was a serpent 

Only half the time! 



MY CASTLE IN SPAIN. 

r I ^HERE was never a castle seen 
So fair as mine in Spain : 
It stands embowered in green, 

Crowning the gentle slope 
Of a hill by the Xenil's shore, 
And at eve its shade flaunts o'er 

The storied Vega plain, 
And its towers are hid in the mists of Hope ; 

And I toil through years of pain 

Its glimmering gates to gain. 

In visions wild and sweet 
Sometimes its courts I greet : 

Sometimes in joy its shining halls 
I tread with favored feet ; 



MY CASTLE IN SPAIN. 89 

But never my eyes in the light of day 

Were blest with its ivied walls, 
Where the marble white and the granite gray 
Turn gold alike when the sunbeams play, 

When the soft day dimly falls. 

I know in its dusky rooms 

Are treasures rich and rare ; 
The spoil of Eastern looms, 

And whatever of bright and fair 
Painters divine have caught and won 

From the vault of Italy's air : 
White gods in Phidian stone 

People the haunted glooms ; 
And the song of immortal singers 
Like a fragrant memory lingers, 

I know, in the echoing rooms. 



gO MY CASTLE IN SPAIN. 

But nothing of these, my soul ! 

Nor castle, nor treasures, nor skies, 
Nor the waves of the river that roll 

With a cadence faint and sweet 

In peace by its marble feet — 
Nothing of these is the goal 

For which my whole heart sighs. 
'T is the pearl gives worth to the shell 

The pearl I would die to gain ; 
For there does my lady dwell, 
My love that I love so well — 

The Queen whose gracious reign 

Makes glad my Castle in Spain. 

Her face so pure and fair 

Sheds light in the shady places, 



MY CASTLE IN SPAIN. 9 1 

And the spell of her girlish graces 
Holds charmed the happy air. 

A breath of purity- 
Forever before her flies, 

And ill things cease to be 

In the glance of her honest eyes. 

Around her pathway flutter, 

Where her dear feet wander free 

In youth's pure majesty, 

The wings of the vague desires ; 

But the thought that love would utter 
In reverence expires. 

Not yet ! not yet shall I see 

That face which shines like a star 
O'er my storm-swept life afar, 

Transfigured with love for me. 



92 MY CASTLE IN SPAIN. 

Toiling, forgetting, and learning 
With labor and vigils and prayers, 

Pure heart and resolute will, 

At last I shall climb the hill 
And breathe the enchanted airs 
Where the light of my life is burning 

Most lovely and fair and free, 
Where alone in her youth and beauty, 
And bound by her fate's sweet duty, 

Unconscious she waits for me. 



SISTER SAINT LUKE. 

Q*HE lived shut in by flowers and trees 

And shade of gentle bigotries. 
On this side lay the trackless sea, 
On that the great world's mystery ; 
But all unseen and all unguessed 
They could not break upon her rest. 
The world's far splendors gleamed and flashed, 
Afar the wild seas foamed and dashed ; 
But in her small, dull Paradise, 
Safe housed from rapture or surprise, 
Nor day nor night had power to fright 
The peace of God that filled her eyes. 



NEW AND OLD. 



MILES KEOGH'S HORSE. 

r\N the bluff of the Little Big-Horn, 
At the close of a woful day, 
Custer and his Three Hundred 
In death and silence lay. 

Three Hundred to three Thousand! 

They had bravely fought and bled ; 
For such is the will of Congress 

When the White man meets the Red. 

The White men are ten millions, 
The thriftiest under the sun ; 

The Reds are fifty thousand, 
And warriors every one. 



98 MILES KEOGH's HORSE. 

So Custer and all his fighting men 
Lay under the evening skies, 

Staring up at the tranquil heaven 
With wide, accusing eyes. 

And of all that stood at noonday 
In that fiery scorpion ring, 

Miles Keogh's horse at evening 
Was the only living thing. 

Alone from that field of slaughter, 
Where lay the three hundred slain, 

The horse Comanche wandered, 
With Keogh's blood on his mane. 

And Sturgis issued this order, 
Which future times shall read, 



MILES KEOGH S HORSE. 99 

While the love and honor of comrades 
Are the soul of the soldier's creed. 

He said — 

Let the horse Comanche 

Henceforth till he shall die, 
Be kindly cherished and cared for 

By the Seventh Cavalry 

He shall do no labor ; he never shall know 

The touch of spur or rein ; 
Nor shall his back be ever crossed 

By living rider again. 

And at regimental formation 
Of the Seventh Cavalry, 

LcfC. 



IOO MILES KEOGHS HORSE. 

Comanche draped in mourning and led 
By a trooper of Company I, 

Shall parade with the Regiment! 

Thus it was 

Commanded and thus done, 
By order of General Sturgis, signed 

By Adjutant Garlington. 

Even as the sword of Custer, 

In his disastrous fall, 
Flashed out a blaze that charmed the world 

And glorified his pall, 

This order, issued amid the gloom 
That shrouds our army's name, 



MILES KEOGH S HORSE. IOI 

When all foul beasts are free to rend 
And tear its honest fame, 

Shall prove to a callous people 

That the sense of a soldiers worth, 

That the love of comrades, the honor of arms, 
Have not yet perished from earth. 



THE ADVANCE GUARD. 

TN the dream of the Northern poets, 

The brave who in battle die 
Fight on in shadowy phalanx 

In the field of the upper sky ; 
And as we read the sounding rhyme, 

The reverent fancy hears 
The ghostly ring of the viewless swords 

And the clash of the spectral spears. 

We think with imperious questionings 
Of the brothers whom we have lost, 

And we strive to track in death's mystery 
The flight of each valiant ghost. 



THE ADVANCE GUARD. IO3 

The Northern myth comes back to us, 
And we feel, through our sorrow's night, 

That those young souls are striving still 
Somewhere for the truth and light. 

It was not their time for rest and sleep; 

Their hearts beat high and strong ; 
In their fresh veins the blood of youth 

Was singing its hot, sweet song. 
The open heaven bent over them, 

Mid flowers their lithe feet trod, 
Their lives lay vivid in light, and blest 

By the smiles of women and God. 

Again they come ! Again I hear 

The tread of that goodly band ; 
I know the flash of Ellsworth's eye 

And the grasp of his hard, warm hand ; 



104 THE ADVANCE GUARD. 

And Putnam, and Shaw, of the lion-heart, 
And an eye like a Boston girl's ; 

And I see the light of heaven which lay 
On Ulric Dahlgren's curls. 

There is no power in the gloom of hell 

To quench those spirits' fire ; 
There is no power in the bliss of heaven 

To bid them not -aspire ; 
But somewhere in the eternal plan 

That strength, that life survive, 
And like the files on Lookout's crest, 

Above death's clouds they strive. 

A chosen corps, they are marching on 

In a wider field than ours ; 
Those bright battalions still fulfill 

The scheme of the heavenly powers ; 



THE ADVANCE GUARD. 105 

And high brave thoughts float down to us, 

The echoes of that far fight, 
Like the flash of a distant picket's gun 

Through the shades of the severing night. 

No fear for them ! In our lower field 

Let us keep our arms unstained, 
That at last we be w r orthy to stand with them 

On the shining heights they 've gained. 
We shall meet and greet in closing ranks 

In Time's declining sun, 
When the bugles of God shall sound recall 

And the battle of life be won. 



LOVE'S PRAYER. 

TF Heaven would hear my prayer, 
My dearest wish would be, 

Thy sorrows not to share 

But take them all on me ; 

If Heaven would hear my prayer. 

I 'd beg with prayers and sighs 

That never a tear might flow 

From out thy lovely eyes, 

If Heaven might grant it so; 

Mine be the tears and sighs. 

No cloud thy brow should cover, 
But smiles each other chase 



LOVE S PRAYER. 107 

From lips to eyes all over 

Thy sweet and sunny face; 
The clouds my heart should cover. 

That all thy path be light 

Let darkness fall on me ; . 
If all thy days be bright, 

Mine black as night could be; 
My love would light my night. 

For thou art more than life, 

And if our fate should set 
Life and my love at strife, 

How could I then forget 
I love thee more than life ? 



CHRISTINE. 



*TPHE beauty of the northern dawns, 
Their pure, pale light is thine; 
Yet all the dreams of tropic nights / 



Within thy blue eyes shine. 
Not statelier in their prisoning seas 

The icebergs grandly move, 
But in thy smile is youth and joy, 

And in thy voice is love. 

Thou art, like Hecla's crest that stands 
So lonely, proud, and high, 

No earthly thing may come between 
Her summit and the sky. 



I 
A 



CHRISTINE. 109 

The sun in vain may strive to melt 

Her crown of virgin snow — 
But the great heart of the mountain glows 

With deathless fire below. 



EXPECTATION. 

"O OLL on, O shining sun, 

To the far seas, 
Bring down, ye shades of eve, 

The soft, salt breeze! 
Shine out, O stars, and light 
My darling's pathway bright, 
As through the summer night 

She comes to me. 

No beam of any star 

Can match her eyes; 

Her smile the bursting day 
In light outvies. 



EXPECTATION. Ill 



Her voice — the sweetest thing 
Heard by the raptured spring 
When waking wild-woods ring — 
She comes to me. 

Ye stars, more swiftly wheel, 

O'er earth's still breast ; 
More wildly plunge and reel 

In the dim west ! 
The earth is lone and lorn, 
Till the glad day be born, 
Till with the happy morn 
She comes to me. 



TO FLORA. 

\\ 7HEN April woke the drowsy flowers, 

And vagrant odors thronged the breeze, 
And bluebirds wrangled in the bowers, 

And daisies flashed along the leas, 
And faint arbutus strove among 

Dead winter's leaf-strewn wreck to rise, 
And nature's sweetly jubilant song 

Went murmuring up the sunny skies, 
Into this cheerful world you came, 
And gained by right your vernal name. 

I think the springs have changed of late, 
For " Arctics " are my daily wear, 

The skies are turnpd to cold gray slate, 
And zephyrs are but draughts of air ; 



TO FLORA. 113 

But you make up whate'er we lack, 

When we, too rarely, come together, 
More potent than the almanac, 

You bring the ideal April weather; 
When you are with us we defy 
The blustering air, the lowering sky; 
In spite of Winter's icy darts, 
We 've spring and sunshine in our hearts. 

In fine, upon this April day, 

This deep conundrum I will bring : 

Tell me the two good reasons, pray, 

I have, to say you are like spring? 

[You give it up ?] Because we love you — 
And see so very little of you. 



A HAUNTED ROOM. 

TN the dim chamber whence but yesterday 
Passed my beloved, filled with awe I stand ; 
And haunting Loves fluttering on every hand 
Whisper her praises who is far away. 
A thousand delicate fancies glance and play 
On every object which her robes have fanned, 
And tenderest thoughts and hopes bloom and 
expand 
In the sweet memory of her beauty's ray. 
Ah ! could that glass but hold the faintest 
trace 
Of all the loveliness once mirrored there, 
The clustering glory of the shadowy hair 



A HAUNTED ROOM. H5 

That framed so well the dear young angel face ! 

But no, it shows my own face, full of care, 
And my heart is her beauty's dwelling-place. 



DREAMS. 

T LOVE a woman tenderly, 

But cannot know if she loves me. 
I press her hand, her lips I kiss, 
But still love's full assurance miss. 
Our waking life forever seems 
Cleft by a veil of doubt and dreams. 

But love and night and sleep combine 
In dreams to make her wholly mine. 
A sure love lights her eyes' deep blue, 
Her hands and lips are warm and true. 
Always the fact unreal seems, 
And truth I find alone in dreams. 



THE LIGHT OF LOVE. 

| "ACH shining light above us 

Has its own peculiar grace; 
But every light of heaven 
Is in my darling's face. 

For it is like the sunlight, 

So strong and pure and warm, 

That folds all good and happy things, 
And guards from gloom and harm. 

And it is like the moonlight, 

So holy and so calm ; 
The rapt peace of a summer night, 

When soft winds die in balm. 



Il8 THE LIGHT OF LOVE. 

And it is like the starlight ; 

For, love her as I may, 
She dwells still lofty and serene 

In mystery far away. 



QUAND MEME. 

T STROVE, like Israel, with my youth, 
And said, Till thou bestow 

Upon my life Love's joy and truth, 
I will not let thee go. 

And sudden on my night there woke 

The trouble of the dawn ; 
Out of the east the red light broke, 

To broaden on and on. 

And now let death be far or nigh, 
Let fortune gloom or shine, 

I cannot all untimely die, 

For love, for love is mine. 



120 QUAND MEME. 

My days are tuned to finer chords, 

And lit by higher suns ; 
Through all my thoughts and all my words 

A purer purpose runs. 

The blank page of my heart grows rife 
With wealth of tender lore ; 

Her image, stamped upon my life, 
Gives value evermore. 

She is so noble, firm, and true, 
I drink truth from her eyes, 

As violets gain the heaven's own blue 
In gazing at the skies. 

No matter if my hands attain 
The golden crown or cross ; 



QUAND MEME. 121 

Only to love is such a gain 
That losing is not loss. 

And thus whatever fate betide 

Of rapture or of pain, 
If storm or sun the future hide, 

My love is not in vain. 

So only thanks are on my lips ; 

And through my love I see 
My earliest dreams, like freighted ships, 

Come sailing home to me. 



WORDS. 

\li 7 HEN violets were springing 

And sunshine filled the day, 
And happy birds were singing 

The praises of the May, 
A word came to me, blighting 

The beauty of the scene, 
And in my heart was winter, 

Though all the trees were green. 

Now down the blast go sailing 

The dead leaves, brown and sere ; 

The forests are bewailing 
The dying of the year ; 



WORDS. 123 



A word comes to me, lighting 
With rapture all the air, 

And in my heart is summer, 

Though all the trees are bare. 



THE STIRRUP CUP. 

TV /TY short and happy day is done, 

The long and dreary night comes on ; 
And at my door the Pale Horse stands, 
To carry me to unknown lands. 

His whinny shrill, his pawing hoof, 
Sound dreadful as a gathering storm ; 
And I must leave this sheltering roof, 
And joys of life so soft and warm. 

Tender and warm the joys of life, — 
Good friends, the faithful and the true ; 
My rosy children and my wife, 
So sweet to kiss, so fair to view. 



THE STIRRUP CUP. 125 

So sweet to kiss, so fair to view, — 
The night comes down, the lights burn blue ; 
And at my door the Pale Horse stands, 
To bear me forth to unknown lands. 



A DREAM OF BRIC-A-BRAC. 
[C. K. loquitur?^ 

T DREAMED I was in fair Niphon. 

Amid tea-fields I journeyed on, 
Reclined in my jinrikishaw; 
Across the rolling plains I saw 
The lordly Fusi-yama rise, 
His blue cone lost in bluer skies. 

At last I bade my bearers stop 
Before what seemed a china-shop. 
I roused myself and entered in. 
A fearful joy, like some sweet sin, 
Pierced through my bosom as I gazed, 
Entranced, transported, and amazed. 



A DREAM OF BRIC-A-BRAC. 127 

For all the house was but one room, 
And in its clear and grateful gloom, 
Filled with all odors strange and strong 
That to the wondrous East belong, 
I saw above, around, below, 
A sight to make the warm heart glow, 
And leave the eager soul no lack, — 
An endless wealth of bric-a-brac. 

I saw bronze statues, old and rare, 
Fashioned by no mere mortal skill, 
With robes that fluttered in the air, 
Blown out by Art's eternal will ; 
And delicate ivory netsukes, 
Richer in tone than Chedder cheese, 
Of saints and hermits, cats and dogs, 
Grim warriors and ecstatic frogs. 



128 A DREAM OF BRIC-A-BRAC. 

And here and there those wondrous masks, 
More living flesh than sandal-wood, 
Where the full soul in pleasure basks 
And dreams of love, the only good. 
The walls were all with pictures hung : 
Gay villas bright in rain-washed air, 
* Trees to whose boughs brown monkeys clung, 
Outlineless dabs of fuzzy hair. 
And all about the opulent shelves 
Littered with porcelain beyond price : 
Imari pots arrayed themselves 
Beside Ming dishes ; grain-of-rice 
Vied with the Royal Satsuma, 
Proud of its sallow ivory beam ; 
And Kaga's Thousand Hermits lay 
Tranced in some punch-bowl's golden gleam. 
Over bronze censers, black with age, 
The five-clawed dragons strife engage ; 



A DREAM OF BRIC-A-BRAC. I2Q 

A curled and insolent Dog of Foo 
Sniffs at the smoke aspiring through. 

In what old days, in what far lands, 
What busy brains, what cunning hands, 
With what quaint speech, what alien thought, 
Strange fellow-men these marvels wrought ! 

As thus I mused, I was aware 
There grew before my eager eyes 
A little maid too bright and fair, 
Too strangely lovely for surprise. 
It seemed the beauty of the place 
Had suddenly become concrete, 
So full was she of Orient grace, 
From her slant eyes and burnished face 
Down to her little gold-bronze feet. 



I30 A DREAM OF BRIC-A-BRAC. 

She was a girl of old Japan ; 

Her small hand held a gilded fan, 

Which scattered fragrance through the room ; 

Her cheek was rich with pallid bloom, 

Her eye was dark with languid fire, 

Her red lips breathed a vague desire ; 

Her teeth, of pearl inviolate, 

Sweetly proclaimed her maiden state. 

Her garb was stiff with broidered gold 

Twined with mysterious fold on fold, 

That gave no hint where, hidden well, 

Her dainty form might warmly dwell, — 

A pearl within too large a shell. 

So quaint, so short, so lissome, she, 

It seemed as if it well might be 

Some jocose god, with sportive whirl, 

Had taken up a long lithe girl 



A DREAM OF BRIC-A-BRAC. 13 1 

And tied a graceful knot in her. 

I tried to speak, and found, oh, bliss ! 

I needed no interpreter ; 

I knew the Japanese for kiss, — 

I had no other thought but this ; 

And she, with smile and blush divine, 

Kind to my stammering prayer did seem ; 

My thought was hers, and hers was mine, 

In the swift logic of my dream. 

My arms clung round her slender waist, 

Through gold and silk the form I traced, 

And glad as rain that follows drouth, 

I kissed and kissed her bright red mouth. 

What ailed the girl ? No loving sigh 
Heaved the round bosom ; in her eye 
Trembled no tear ; from her dear throat 
Bubbled a sweet and silvery note 



132 A DREAM OF BRIC-A-BRAC. 

Of girlish laughter, shrill and clear, 
That all the statues seemed to hear. 
The bronzes tinkled laughter fine; 
I heard a chuckle argentine 
Ring from the silver images ; 
Even the ivory netsukes 
Uttered in every silent pause 
Dry, bony laughs from tiny jaws ; 
The painted monkeys on the wall 
Waked up with chatter impudent ; 
Pottery, porcelain, bronze, and all 
Broke out in ghostly merriment, — 
Faint as rain pattering on dry leaves, 
Or cricket's chirp on summer eves. 

And suddenly upon my sight 

There grew a portent : left and right, 



A DREAM OF BRIC-A-BRAC. 1 33 

On every side, as if the air . 

Had taken substance then and there, 

In every sort of form and face, 

A throng of tourists filled the place. 

I saw a Frenchman's sneering shrug; 

A German countess, in one hand 

A sky-blue string which held a pug, 

With the other a fiery face she fanned ; 

A Yankee with a soft felt hat ; 

A Coptic priest from Ararat ; 

An English girl with cheeks of rose; 

A Nihilist with Socratic nose ; 

Paddy from Cork with baggage light 

And pockets stuffed with dynamite ; 

A haughty Southern Readjuster 

Wrapped in his pride and linen duster ; 

Two noisy New York stock-brokers 

And twenty British globe-trotters. 



134 A DREAM OF BRIC-A-BRAC. 

To my disgust and vast surprise 

They turned on me lack-lustre eyes, 

And each with dropped and wagging jaw 

Burst out into a wild guffaw : 

They laughed with huge mouths opened wide; 

They roared till each one held his side ; 

They screamed and writhed with brutal glee, 

With fingers rudely stretched to me, — 

Till lo ! at once the laughter died, 

The tourists faded into air ; 

None but my fair maid lingered there, 

Who stood demurely by my side. 

"Who were your friends ?" I asked the maid, 

Taking a tea-cup from its shelf. 

"This audience is disclosed,'' she said, 

"Whenever a man makes a fool of himself.'* 



LIBERTY. 

\ 17 HAT man is there so bold that he should 

say 
"Thus, and thus only, would I have the sea" ? 
For whether lying calm and beautiful, 
Clasping the earth in love, and throwing back 
The smile of heaven from waves of amethyst ; 
Or whether, freshened by the busy winds, 
It bears the trade and navies of the world 
To ends of use or stern activity ; 
Or whether, lashed by tempests, it gives way 
To elemental fury, howls and roars 
At all its rocky barriers, in wild lust 
Of ruin drinks the blood of living things, 



I36 LIBERTY. 

And strews its wrecks o'er leagues of desolate 

shore, — 
Always it is the sea, and men bow down 
Before its vast and varied majesty. 

So all in vain will timorous ones essay 

To set the metes and bounds of Liberty. 

For Freedom is its own eternal law ; 

It makes its own conditions, and in storm 

Or calm alike fulfills the unerring Will. 

Let us not then despise it when it lies 

Still as a sleeping lion, while a swarm 

Of gnat-like evils hover round its head ; 

Nor doubt it when in mad, disjointed times 

It shakes the torch of terror, and its cry 

Shrills o'er the quaking earth, and in the flame 

Of riot and war we see its awful form 



LIBERTY. I37 

Rise by the scaffold, where the crimson axe 
Rings down its grooves the knell of shuddering 

kings. 
Forever in thine eyes, O Liberty, 
Shines that high light whereby the world is saved, 
And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee ! 



THE WHITE FLAG. 

T SENT my love two roses, — one 

As white as driven snow, 
And one a blushing royal red, 
A flaming Jacqueminot. 

I meant to touch and test my fate ; 

That night I should divine, 
The moment I should see my love, 

If her true heart were mine. 

For if she holds me dear, I said, 
She '11 wear my blushing rose ; 

If not, she'll wear my cold Lamarque, 
As white as winter's snows. 



THE WHITE FLAG. 1 39 

My heart sank when I met her : sure 

I had been overbold, 
For on her breast my pale rose lay 

In virgin whiteness cold. 

Yet with low words she greeted me, 

With smiles divinely tender; 
Upon her cheek the red rose dawned, — 

The white rose meant surrender. 



THE LAW OF DEATH. 

r I ^HE song of Kilvani : fairest she 

In all the land of Savatthi. 
She had one child, as sweet and gay 
And dear to her as the light of day. 
She was so young, and he so fair, 
The same bright eyes and the same dark hair; 
To see them by the blossomy way, 
They seemed two children at their play. 

There came a death-dart from the sky, 
Kilvani saw her darling die. 
The glimmering shade his eyes invades, 
Out of his cheek the red bloom fades ; 



THE LAW OF DEATH. I4I 

His warm heart feels the icy chill, 
The round limbs shudder, and are still. 
And yet Kilvani held him fast 
Long after life's last pulse was past, 
As if her kisses could restore 
The smile gone out forevermore. 

But when she saw her child was dead, 
She scattered ashes on her head, 
And seized the small corpse, pale and sweet, 
And rushing wildly through the street, 
She sobbing fell at Buddha's feet. 

"Master, all-helpful, help me now! 
Here at thy feet I humbly bow ; 
Have mercy, Buddha, help me now ! " 
She groveled on the marble floor, 
And kissed the dead child o'er and o'er. 



142 THE LAW OF DEATH. 

And suddenly upon the air 
There fell the answer to her prayer : 
"Bring me to-night a lotus tied 
With thread from a house where none has 
died." 

She rose, and laughed with thankful joy, 
Sure that the god would save the boy. 
She found a lotus by the stream ; 
She plucked it from its noonday dream. 
And then from door to door she fared, 
To ask what house by Death was spared. 
Her heart grew cold to see the eyes 
Of all dilate with slow surprise : 
" Kilvani, thou hast lost thy head ; 
Nothing can help a child that 's dead. 
There stands not by the Ganges' side 



THE LAW OF DEATH. 143 

A house where none hath ever died." 
Thus, through the long and weary day, 
From every door she bore away 
Within her heart, and on her arm, 
A heavier load, a deeper harm. 
By gates of gold and ivory, 
By wattled huts of poverty, 
The same refrain heard poor Kilvani, 
The living are few, the dead are many. 

The evening came — so still and fleet — 
And overtook her hurrying feet. 
And, heartsick, by the sacred fane 
She fell, and prayed the god again. 
She sobbed and beat her bursting breast : 
" Ah, thou hast mocked me, Mightiest ! 
Lo ! I have wandered far and wide ; 



144 THE LAW OF DEATH. 

There stands no house where none hath died." 

And Buddha answered, in a tone 

Soft as a flute at twilight blown, 

But grand as heaven and strong as death 

To him who hears with ears of faith : 

" Child, thou art answered. Murmur not! 

Bow, and accept the common lot." 

Kilvani heard with reverence meet, 
And laid her child at Buddha's feet. 



MOUNT TABOR. 

/^\N Tabor's height a glory came, 

And, shrined in clouds of lambent flame, 
The awestruck, hushed disciples saw- 
Christ and the prophets of the law. 
Moses, whose grand and awful face 
Of Sinai's thunder bore the trace, 
And wise Elias, — in his eyes 
The shade of Israel's prophecies, — 
Stood in that wide, mysterious light, 
Than Syrian noons more purely bright, 
One on each hand, and high between 
Shone forth the godlike Nazarene. 



1 46 MOUNT TABOR. 

They bowed their heads in holy fright, 
No mortal eyes could bear the sight, — 
And when they looked again, behold ! 
The fiery clouds had backward rolled, 
And borne aloft in grandeur lonely, 
Nothing was left " save Jesus only." 

Resplendent type of things to be! 
We read its mystery to-day 
With clearer eyes than even they, 
The fisher-saints of Galilee. 
We see the Christ stand out between 
The ancient law and faith serene, 
Spirit and letter; but above 
Spirit and letter both was Love. 
Led by the hand of Jacob's God, 
Through wastes of eld a path was trod 



MOUNT TABOR. I47 

By which the savage world could move 
Upward through law and faith to love. 
And there in Tabor's harmless flame 
The crowning revelation came. 
The old world knelt in homage due, 
The prophets near in reverence drew, 
Law ceased its mission to fulfill, 
And Love was lord on Tabor's hill. 

So now, while creeds perplex the mind 
And wranglings load the weary wind, 
When all the air is filled with words 
And texts that ring like clashing swords, 
Still, as for refuge, we may turn 
Where Tabor's shining glories burn, — 
The soul of antique Israel gone, 
And nothing left but Christ alone. 



RELIGION AND DOCTRINE. 

TTE stood before the Sanhedrim; 

The scowling rabbis gazed at him. 
He recked not of their praise or blame ; 
There was no fear, there was no shame, 
For one upon whose dazzled eyes 
The whole world poured its vast surprise. 
The open heaven was far too near, 
His first day's light too sweet and clear, 
To let him waste his new-gained ken 
On the hate-clouded face of men. 

But still they questioned, Who art thou ? 
What hast thou been ? What art thou now ? 



RELIGION AND DOCTRINE. 149 

Thou art not he who yesterday- 
Sat here and begged beside the way ; 
For he was blind. 

— And I am he ; 
For I was blind, but now I see. 

He told the story o'er and o'er ; 
It was his full heart's only lore : 
A prophet on the Sabbath-day 
Had touched his sightless eyes with clay, 
And made him see who had been blind. 
Their words passed by him like the wind, 
Which raves and howls, but cannot shock 
The hundred-fathom-rooted rock. 

Their threats and fury all went wide ; 
They could not touch his Hebrew pride. 



I5O RELIGION AND DOCTRINE. 

Their sneers at Jesus and His band, 
Nameless and homeless in the land, 
Their boasts of Moses and his Lord, 
All could not change him by one word. 

/ know not what this man may be, 
Sinner or saint ; but as for me, 
One thing I know, — that I am he 
Who once was blind, and now I see. 

They were all doctors of renown, 
The great men of a famous town, 
With deep brows, wrinkled, broad, and wise, 
Beneath their wide phylacteries; 
The wisdom of the East was theirs, 
And honor crowned their silver hairs. 
The man they jeered and laughed to scorn 



RELIGION AND DOCTRINE. 151 

Was unlearned, poor, and humbly born ; 
But he knew better far than they 
What came to him that Sabbath-day ; 
And what the Christ had done for him 
He knew, and not the Sanhedrim. 



SINAI AND CALVARY. 

r I ^HERE are two mountains hallowed 

By majesty sublime, 
Which rear their crests unconquered 

Above the floods of Time. 
Uncounted generations 

Have gazed on them with awe, — 
The mountain of the Gospel, 

The mountain of the Law. 

From Sinai's cloud of darkness 
The vivid lightnings play ; 

They serve the God of vengeance, 
The Lord who shall repay. 



SINAI AND CALVARY. 1 53 

Each fault must bring its penance, 
Each sin the avenging blade, 

For God upholds in justice 

The laws that He hath made. 

But Calvary stands to ransom 

The earth from utter loss, 
In shade than light more glorious, 

The shadow of the Cross. 
To heal a sick world's trouble, 

To soothe its woe and pain, 
On Calvary's sacred summit 

The Paschal Lamb was slain. 

The boundless might of Heaven 

Its law in mercy furled, 
As once the bow of promise 

O'erarched a drowning world. 



154 SINAI * AND CALVARY. 

The Law said, As you keep me, 
It shall be done to you ; 

But Calvary prays, Forgive them ; 
They know not what they do. 

Almighty God ! direct us 

To keep Thy perfect Law! 
O blessed Saviour, help us 

Nearer to Thee to draw ! 
Let Sinai's thunders aid us 

To guard our feet from sin ; 
And Calvary's light inspire us 

The love of God to win. 



THE VISION OF ST. PETER. 

'"T^O Peter by night the faithfullest came 

And said, " We appeal to thee ! 
The life of the Church is in thy life ; 
We pray thee to rise and flee. 

"For the tyrant's hand is red with blood, 
And his arm is heavy with power ; 

Thy head, the head of the Church, will fall, 
If thou tarry in Rome an hour." 

Through the sleeping town St. Peter passed 

To the wide Campagna plain ; 
In the starry light of the Alban night 

He drew free breath again : 



156 THE VISION OF ST. PETER. 

When across his path an awful form 

In luminous glory stood ; 
His thorn-crowned brow, His hands and feet, 

Were wet with immortal blood. 

The godlike sorrow which filled His eyes 
Seemed changed to a godlike wrath, 

As they turned on Peter, who cried aloud, 
And sank to his knees in the path. 

" Lord of my life, my love, my soul ! 

Say, what wilt Thou with me?" 
A voice replied, " I go to Rome 

To be crucified for thee." 

The apostle sprang, all flushed, to his feet, 
The vision had passed away ; 



THE VISION OF ST. PETER. 1 57 

The light still lay on the dewy plain, 
But the sky in the east was ^ray. 

To the city walls St. Peter turned, 
And his heart in his breast grew fire ; 

In every vein the hot blood burned 
With the strength of one high desire. 

And sturdily back he marched to his death 

Of terrible pain and shame ; 
And never a shade of fear again 

To the stout apostle came. 



ISRAEL. 

\T 7HEN by Jabbok the patriarch waited 

To learn on the morrow his doom, 
And his dubious spirit debated 

In darkness and silence and gloom, 

There descended a Being with whom 
He wrestled in agony sore, 

With striving of heart and of brawn, 
And not for an instant forbore 

Till the east gave a threat of the dawn ; 
And then, as the Awful One blessed him, 

To his lips and his spirit there came, 
Compelled by the doubts that oppressed him, 
The cry that through questioning ages 



ISRAEL. I59 

Has been wrung from the hinds and the sages, 
"Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name ! " 

Most fatal, most futile, of questions ! 

Wherever the heart of man beats, 

In the spirit's most sacred retreats, 
It comes with its sombre suggestions, 

Unanswered forever and aye. 

The blessing may come and may stay, 
For the wrestler s heroic endeavor ; 
But the question, unheeded forever, 

Dies out in the broadening day. 

In the ages before our traditions, 
By the altars of dark superstitions, 

The imperious question has come ; 
When the death-stricken victim lay sobbing 



l6o ISRAEL. 

At the feet of his slayer and priest, 
And his heart was laid smoking and throbbing 

To the sound of the cymbal and drum 
On the steps of the high Teocallis ; 

When the delicate Greek at his feast 
Poured forth the red wine from his chalice 

With mocking and cynical prayer ; 
When by Nile Egypt worshiping lay, 

And afar, through the rosy, flushed air 
The Memnon called out to the day ; 
Where the Muezzin's cry floats from his spire ; 

In the vaulted Cathedral's dim shades, 
Where the crushed hearts of thousands aspire 

Through art's highest miracles higher, 
This question of questions invades 
Each heart bowed in worship or shame ; 

In the air where the censers are swinging, 



ISRAEL. l6l 

A voice, going up with the singing, 

Cries, "Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name ! " 

No answer came back, not a word, 
To the patriarch there by the ford ; 
No answer has come through the ages 
To the poets, the seers, and the sages 
Who have sought in the secrets of science 
The name and the nature of God, 
Whether cursing in desperate defiance 
Or kissing his absolute rod ; 
But the answer which was and shall be, 
"My name! Nay, what is it to thee?" 
The search and the question are vain. 
By use of the strength that is in you, 
By wrestling of soul and of sinew 
The blessing of God you may gain. 



l62 ISRAEL. 

There are lights in the far-gleaming Heaven 

That never will shine on our eyes ; 
To mortals it may not be given 

To range those inviolate skies. 
The mind, whether praying or scorning, 

That tempts those dread secrets shall fail ; 
But strive through the night till the morning, 

And mightily shalt thou prevail. 



THE CROWS AT WASHINGTON. 

QLOW flapping to the setting sun 

By twos and threes, in wavering rows, 
As twilight shadows dimly close, 
The crows fly over Washington. 

Under the crimson sunset sky 
Virginian woodlands leafless lie, 

In wintry torpor bleak and dun. 
Through the rich vault of heaven, which shines 

Like a warmed opal in the sun, 
With wide advance in broken lines 

The crows fly over Washington. 



164 THE CROWS AT WASHINGTON. 

Over the Capitol's white dome, 
Across the obelisk soaring bare 

To prick the clouds, they travel home, 

Content and weary, winnowing 
With dusky vans the golden air, 

Which hints the coming of the spring, 
Though winter whitens Washington. 

The dim, deep air, the level ray 
Of dying sunlight on their plumes, 

Give them a beauty not their own ; 
Their hoarse notes fail and faint away ; 

A rustling murmur floating down 
Blends sweetly with the thickening glooms ; 
They touch with grace the fading day, 

Slow flying over Washington. 



THE CROWS AT WASHINGTON. lC> 

I stand and watch with clouded eyes 

These dim battalions move along; 
Out of the distance memory cries 

Of days when life and hope were strong, 
When love was prompt and wit was gay ; 
Even then, at evening, as to-day, 

I watched, while twilight hovered dim 

Over Potomac's curving rim, 
This selfsame flight of homing crows 
Blotting the sunset's fading rose, 

Above the roofs of Washington. 



REMORSE. 

PAD is the thought of sunniest days 

Of love and rapture perished, 
And shine through memory's tearful haze 

The eyes once fondliest cherished. 
Reproachful is the ghost of toys 

That charmed while life was wasted. 
But saddest is the thought of joys 

That never yet were tasted. 

Sad is the vague and tender dream 
Of dead love's lingering kisses, 

To crushed hearts haloed by the gleam 
Of unreturning blisses ; 



REMORSE. 167 

Deep mourns the soul in anguished pride 
For the pitiless death that won them, — 

But the saddest wail is for lips that died 
With the virgin dew upon them. 



ESSE QUAM VIDERI. 

nr^HE knightly legend of thy shield betrays 
The moral of thy life ; a forecast wise, 

And that large honor that deceit defies, 
Inspired thy fathers in the elder days, 
Who decked thy scutcheon with that sturdy phrase, 

To be rather than seem. As eve's red skies 

Surpass the morning's rosy prophecies, 
Thy life to that proud boast its answer pays. 
Scorning thy faith and purpose to defend 

The ever-mutable multitude at last 

Will hail the power they did not comprehend, — 

Thy fame will broaden through the centuries ; 

As, storm and billowy tumult overpast, 

The moon rules calmly o'er the conquered seas. 



WHEN THE BOYS COME HOME. 

r I ^HERE 's a happy time coming, 

When the boys come home. 
There 's a glorious day coming, 

When the boys come home. 
We will end the dreadful story 
Of this treason dark and gory 
In a sunburst of glory, 

When the boys come home. 

The day will seem brighter 

When the boys come home, 
For our hearts will be lighter 

When the boys come home. 



170 WHEN THE BOYS COME HOME 

Wives and sweethearts will press them 
In their arms and caress them, 
And pray God to bless them, 
When the boys come home. 

The thinned ranks will be proudest 

When the boys come home, 
And their cheer will ring the loudest 

When the boys come home. 
The full ranks will be shattered, 
And the bright arms will be battered, 
And the battle-standards tattered, 
When the boys come home. 

Their bayonets may be rusty, 
When the boys come home, 

And their uniforms dusty, 
When the boys come home. 



WHEN THE BOYS COME HOME. 171 

But all shall see the traces 
Of battle's royal graces, 
In the brown and bearded faces, 
When the boys come home. 

Our love shall go to meet them, 

When the boys come home, 
To bless them and to greet them, 

When the boys come home; 
And the fame of their endeavor 
Time and change shall not dissever 
From the nation's heart forever, 

When the boys come home. 



LESE-AMOUR. 

F OW well my heart remembers 
Beside these camp-fire embers 
The eyes that smiled so far away, — 
The joy that was Novembers. 

Her voice to laughter moving, 
So merrily reproving, — 
We wandered through the autumn woods, 
And neither thought of loving. 

The hills with light were glowing, 
The waves in joy were flowing, — 
It was not to the clouded sun 
The day's delight was owing. 



LESE-AMOUR. 1 73 

Though through the brown leaves straying, 
Our lives seemed gone a-Maying ; 
We knew not Love was with us there, 
No look nor tone betraying. 

How unbelief still misses 
The best of being's blisses ! 
Our parting saw the first and last 
Of love's imagined kisses. 

Now 'mid these scenes the drearest 
I dream of her, the dearest, — 
Whose eyes outshine the Southern stars, 
So far, and yet the nearest. 

And Love, so gayly taunted, 
Who died, no welcome granted, 



l 74 LESE-AMOUR. 

Comes to me now, a pallid ghost, 
By whom my life is haunted. 

With bonds I may not sever, 
He binds my heart forever, 
And leads me where we murdered him, 
The Hill beside the River. 

Camp Shaw, Florida, February, 1864. 



NORTHWARD. 

TNDER the high unclouded sun 

That makes the ship and shadow one, 
I sail away as from the fort 
Booms sullenly the noonday gun. 

The odorous airs blow thin and fine, 
The sparkling waves like emeralds shine, 

The lustre of the coral reefs 
Gleams whitely through the tepid brine. 

And glitters o'er the liquid miles 
The jewelled ring of verdant isles, 

Where generous Nature holds her court 
Of ripened bloom and sunny smiles. 



1 76 NORTHWARD. 

Encinctured by the faithful seas 
Inviolate gardens load the breeze, 

Where flaunt like giant-warders' plumes 
The pennants of the cocoa-trees. 

Enthroned in light and bathed in balm, 
In lonely majesty the Palm 

Blesses the isles with waving hands, — 
High-Priest of the eternal Calm. 

Yet Northward with an equal mind 
I steer my course, and leave behind 

The rapture of the Southern skies, — 
The wooing of the Southern wind. 

For here o'er Nature's wanton bloom 
Falls far and near the shade of gloom, 



NORTHWARD. 177 

Cast from the hovering vulture-wings 
Of one dark thought of woe and doom. 

I know that in the snow-white pines 
The brave Norse fire of freedom shines, 

And fain for this I leave the land 
Where endless summer pranks the vines. 

O strong, free North, so wise and brave ! 
O South, too lovely for a slave ! 

Why read ye not the changeless truth, — 
The free can conquer but to save ? 

May God upon these shining sands 
Send Love and Victory clasping hands, 

And Freedom's banners wave in peace 
Forever o'er the rescued lands ! 



I78 NORTHWARD. 

And here, in that triumphant hour, 
Shall yielding Beauty wed with Power ; 

And blushing earth and smiling sea 
In dalliance deck the bridal bower. 

Key West, 1864. 



IN THE FIRELIGHT 

TV /T Y dear wife sits beside the fire 

With folded hands and dreaming eyes, 

Watching the restless flames aspire, 
And wrapped in thralling memories. 

I mark the fitful firelight fling 
Its warm caresses on her brow, 
And kiss her hands' unmelting snow, 

And glisten on her wedding-ring. 

The proud free head that crowns so well 
The neck superb, whose outlines glide 

Into the bosom's perfect swell 
Soft-billowed by its peaceful tide, 



l80 IN THE FIRELIGHT. 

The cheek's faint flush, the lip's red glow, 
The gracious charm her beauty wears, 
Fill my fond eyes with tender tears 

As in the days of long ago. 

Days long ago, when in her eyes 
The only heaven I cared for lay, 

When from our thoughtless Paradise 
All care and toil dwelt far away ; 

When Hope in wayward fancies throve, 
And rioted in secret sweets, 
Beguiled by Passion's dear deceits, — 

The mysteries of maiden love. 

One year had passed since first my sight 
Was gladdened by her girlish charms, 

When on a rapturous summer night 
I clasped her in possessing arms. 



IN THE FIRELIGHT. l8l 

And now ten years have rolled away, 
And left such blessings as their dower, 
I owe her tenfold at this hour 

The love that lit our wedding-day. 

For now, vague-hovering o'er her form, 

My fancy sees, by love refined, 
A warmer and a dearer charm 

By wedlock's mystic hands intwined, — 
A golden coil of wifely cares 

That years have forged, the loving joy 

That guards the curly-headed boy 
Asleep an hour ago up stairs. 

A fair young mother, pure as fair, 
A matron heart and virgin soul ! 

The flickering light that crowns her hair 
Seems like a saintly aureole. 



1 82 IN THE FIRELIGHT. 

A tender sense upon me falls 
That joy unmerited is mine, 
And in this pleasant twilight shine 

My perfect bliss myself appalls. 

Come back ! my darling, strayed so far 
Into the realm of fantasy, — 

Let thy dear face shine like a star 
In love-light beaming over me. 

My melting soul is jealous, sweet, 
Of thy long silence' drear eclipse, 
O kiss me back with living lips 

To life, love, lying at thy feet ! 



IN A GRAVEYARD. 

T N the dewy depths of the graveyard 

I lie in the tangled grass, 
And watch, in the sea of azure, 
The white cloud-islands pass. 

The birds in the rustling branches 

Sing gayly overhead ; 
Gray stones like sentinel spectres 

Are guarding the silent dead. 

The early flowers sleep shaded 

In the cool green noonday glooms ; 

The broken light falls shuddering 

On the cold white face of the tombs. 



1 84 IN A GRAVEYARD. 

Without, the world is smiling 
In the infinite love of God, 

But the sunlight fails and falters 

When it falls on the churchyard SDd. 

On me the joyous rapture 

Of a heart's first love is shed, 

But it falls on my heart as coldly 
As sunlight on the dead. 



THE PRAIRIE. 

*TPHE skies are blue above my head, 

The prairie green below, 
And flickering o'er the tufted grass 

The shifting shadows go, 
Vague-sailing, where the feathery clouds 

Fleck white the tranquil skies, 
Black javelins darting where aloft 

The whirring pheasant flies. 

A glimmering plain in drowsy trance 

The dim horizon bounds, 
Where all the air is resonant 

With sleepy summer sounds, — 



1 86 THE PRAIRIE. 

The life that sings among the flowers, 
The lisping of the breeze, 

The hot cicala's sultry cry, 

The murmurous dream of bees. 

The butterfly — a flying flower — 

Wheels swift in flashing rings, 
And flutters round his quiet kin, 

With brave flame-mottled wings. 
The wild Pinks burst in crimson fire, 

The Phlox' bright clusters shine, 
And Prairie-Cups are swinging free 

To spill their airy wine. 

And lavishly beneath the sun, 
In liberal splendor rolled, 

The Fennel fills the dipping plain 
With floods of flowery gold ; 



THE PRAIRIE. 1 87 

And widely weaves the Iron- Weed 

A woof of purple dyes 
Where Autumn's royal feet may tread 

When bankrupt Summer flies. 

In verdurous tumult far away 

The prairie-billows gleam, 
Upon their crests in blessing rests 

The noontide's gracious beam. 
Low quivering vapors steaming dim 

The level splendors break 
Where languid Lilies deck the rim 

Of some land-circled lake. 

Far in the East like low-hung clouds 

The waving woodlands lie ; 
Far in the West the glowing plain 

Melts warmly in the sky. 



l88 THE PRAIRIE. 

No accent wounds the reverent air, 
No footprint dints the sod, — 

Lone in the light the prairie lies, 
Rapt in a dream of God 

Illinois, 185S. 



CENTENNIAL. 

A HUNDRED times the bells of Brown 
Have rung to sleep the idle summers, 
And still to-day clangs clamoring down 
A greeting to the welcome comers. 

And far, like waves of morning, pours 
Her call, in airy ripples breaking, 

And wanders to the farthest shores, 
Her children's drowsy hearts awaking. 

The wild vibration floats along, 

O'er heart-strings tense its magic plying, 
And wakes in every breast its song 

Of love and gratitude undying. 



190 CENTENNIAL. 

My heart to meet the summons leaps 

At limit of its straining tether, 
Where the fresh western sunlight steeps 

In golden flame the prairie heather. 

And others, happier, rise and fare 
To pass within the hallowed portal, 

And see the glory shining there 

Shrined in her steadfast eyes immortal. 

What though their eyes be dim and dull, 
Their heads be white in reverend blossom ; 

Our mother's smile is beautiful 
As when she bore them on her bosom ! 

Her heavenly forehead bears no line 
Of Time's iconoclastic fingers, 



CENTENNIAL. I9I 

But o'er her form the grace divine 

Of deathless youth and wisdom lingers. 

We fade and pass, grow faint and old, 

Till youth and joy and hope are banished, 

And still her beauty seems to fold 
The sum of all the glory vanished. 

As while Tithonus faltered on 

The threshold of the Olympian dawnings, 
Auroras front eternal shone 

With lustre of the myriad mornings. 

So joys that slip like dead leaves down, 
And hopes burnt out that die in ashes, 

Rise restless from their graves to crown 
Our mother's brow with fadeless flashes. 



I92 CENTENNIAL. 

And lives wrapped in tradition's mist 

These honored halls to-day are haunting, 

And lips by lips long withered kissed 
The sagas of the past are chanting. 

Scornful of absence' envious bar 

Brown smiles upon the mystic meeting 

Of those her sons, who, sundered far, 
In brotherhood of heart are greeting ; 

Her wayward children wandering on 
Where setting stars are lowly burning, 

But still in worship toward the dawn 

That gilds their souls' dear Mecca turning ; 

Or those who, armed for God's own fight, 

Stand by his word through fire and slaughter, 



CENTENNIAL. 1 93 

Or bear our banner's starry light 

Far-flashing through the Gulf's blue water. 

For where one strikes for light and truth 
The right to aid, the wrong redressing, 

The mother of his spirit's youth 

Sheds o'er his soul her silent blessing. 

She gained her crown a gem of flame 
When Kneass fell dead in victory gory ; 

New splendor blazed upon her name 

When Ives' young life went out in glory ! 

m 

Thus bright forever may she keep 

Her fires of tolerant Freedom burning, 

Till War's red eyes are charmed to sleep 
And bells ring home the boys returning. 



194 CENTENNIAL. 

And may she shed her radiant truth 

In largess on ingenuous comers, 
And hold the bloom of gracious youth 

Through many a hundred tranquil summers^. 



A WINTER NIGHT. 

r I ^HE winter wind is raving fierce and shrill 

And chides with angry moan the frosty skies, 
The white stars gaze with sleepless Gorgon eyes 

That freeze the earth in terror fixed and still. 

We reck not of the wild night's gloom and chill, 
Housed from its rage, dear friend ; and fancy flies, 
Lured by the hand of beckoning memories, 

Back to those summer evenings on the hill 

Where we together watched the sun go down 
Beyond the gold-washed uplands, while his fires 
Touched into glittering life the vanes and spires 

Piercing the purpling mists that veiled the town. 
The wintry night thy voice and eyes beguile, 
Till wake the sleeping summers in thy smile. 



STUDENT-SONG. 

XX T HEN Youth's warm heart beats high, my friend 

And Youth's blue sky is bright, 
And shines in Youth's clear eye, my friend, 

Love's early dawning light, 
Let the free soul spurn care's control, 

And while the glad days shine, 
We '11 use their beams for Youth's gay dreams 

Of Love and Song and Wine. 

Let not the bigot's frown, my friend, 

O'ercast thy brow with gloom, 
For Autumn's sober brown, my friend, 

Shall follow Summer's bloom. 



STUDENT-SONG. 197 

Let smiles and sighs and loving eyes 

In changeful beauty shine, 
And shed their beams on Youth's gay dreams 

Of Love and Song and Wine, 

For in the weary years, my friend, 

That stretched before us lie, 
There '11 be enough of tears, my friend, 

To dim the brightest eye. 
So let them wait, and laugh at fate, 

While Youth's sweet moments shine, — 
Till memory gleams with golden dreams 

Of Love and Song and Wine. 



HOW IT HAPPENED. 



PRAY you, pardon me, Elsie, 
And smile that frown away 



That dims the light of your lovely face 

As a thunder-cloud the day. 
I really could not help it, — 

Before I thought, 't was done, — 
And those great gray eyes flashed bright and cold, 

Like an icicle in the sun. 

I was thinking of the summers 

When we were boys and girls, 
And wandered in the blossoming woods, 

And the gay winds romped with your curls. 



HOW IT HAPPENED. 199 

And you seemed to me the same little girl 

I kissed in the alder-path, 
I kissed the little girl's lips, and alas ! 

I have roused a woman's wrath. 

There is not so much to pardon, — 

For why were your lips so red ? 
The blond hair fell in a shower of gold 

From the proud, provoking head. 
And the beauty that flashed from the splendid eyes, 

And played round the tender mouth, 
Rushed over my soul like a warm sweet wind 

That blows from the fragrant south. 

And where, after all, is the harm done ? 

I believe we were made to be gay, 
And all of youth not given to love 

Is vainly squandered away. 



200 HOW IT HAPPENED. 

And strewn through life's low labors, 

Like gold in the desert sands, 
Are love's swift kisses and sighs and vows 

And the clasp of clinging hands. 

And when you are old and lonely, 

In Memory's magic shine 
You will see on your thin and wasting hands, 

Like gems, these kisses of mine. 
And when you muse at evening 

At the sound of some vanished name, 
The ghost of my kisses shall touch your lips 

And kindle your heart to flame. 



GOD'S VENGEANCE. 

OAITH the Lord, "Vengeance is mine; 

I will repay," saith the Lord ; 
Ours be the anger divine, 
Lit by the flash of his word. 

How shall his vengeance be done ? 

How, when his purpose is clear ? 
Must he come down from his throne ? 

Hath he no instruments here ? 

Sleep not in imbecile trust 
Waiting for God to begin, 



202 GOD S VENGEANCE. 

While, growing strong in the dust, 
Rests the bruised serpent of sin. 

Right and Wrong, — both cannot live 
Death-grappled. Which shall we see ? 

Strike ! only Justice can give 
Safety to all that shall be. 

Shame ! to stand paltering thus, 
Tricked by the balancing odds ; 

Strike ! God is waiting for us ! 

Strike ! for the vengeance is God's* 



TOO LATE. 

T T AD we but met in other days, 

Had we but loved in other ways, 
Another light and hope had shone 
On your life and my own. 

In sweet but hopeless reveries 
I fancy how your wistful eyes 
Had saved me, had I known their power 
In fate's imperious hour ; 

How loving you, beloved of God, 
And following you, the path I trod 
Had led me, through your love and prayers. 
To God's love unawares : 



204 T0 ° LATE. 

And how our beings joined as one 
Had passed through checkered shade and sun, 
Until the earth our lives had given, 
With little change, to heaven. 

God knows why this was not to be. 

You bloomed from childhood far from me 9 

The sunshine of the favored place 

That knew your youth and grace. 

And when your eyes, so fair and free, 
In fearless beauty beamed on me, 
I knew the fatal die was thrown, 
My choice in life was gone. 

And still with wild and tender art 
Your child-love touched my torpid heart, 



TOO LATE. 205 

Gilding the blackness where it fell, 
Like sunlight over hell. 

In vain, in vain ! my choice was gone ! 
Better to struggle on alone 
Than blot your pure life's blameless shine 
With cloudy stains of mine. 

A vague regret, a troubled prayer, 
And then the future vast and fair 
Will tempt your young and eager eyes. 
With all its glad surprise. 

And I shall watch you, safe and far, 
As some late traveller eyes a star 
Wheeling beyond his desert sands 
To gladden happier lands. 



LOVE'S DOUBT. 

,r I ^ IS love that blinds my heart and eyes, - 
I sometimes say in doubting dreams, — 
The face that near me perfect seems 
Cold Memory paints in fainter dyes. 

'T was but love's dazzled eyes — I say — 
That made her seem so strangely bright ; 
The face I worshipped yesternight, 

I dread to meet it changed to-day. 

As, when dies out some song's refrain, 
And leaves your eyes in happy tears, 
Awake the same fond idle fears, — 

It cannot sound so sweet again. 



LOVES DOUBT. 207 

You wait and say with vague annoy, 
" It will not sound so sweet again," 
Until comes back the wild refrain 

That floods your soul with treble joy 

So when I see my love again 
Fades the unquiet doubt away, 
While shines her beauty like the day 

Over my happy heart and brain. 

And in that face I see no more 
The fancied faults I idly dreamed, 
But all the charms that fairest seemed, 

I find them, fairer than before. 



LAGRIMAS. 

f~* OD send me tears ! 
Loose the fierce band that binds my tired brain. 
Give me the melting heart of other years, 

And let me weep again ! 

Before me pass 
The shapes of things inexorably true. 
Gone is the sparkle of transforming dew 

From every blade of grass. 

In life's high noon 
Aimless I stand, my promised task undone, 
And raise my hot eyes to the angry sun 

That will go down too soon. 



LAGRIMAS. 209 

Turned into gall 
Are the sweet joys of childhood's sunny reign ; 
And memory is a torture, love a chain 

That binds my life in thrall. 

And childhood's pain 
Could to me now the purest rapture yield ; 
I pray for tears as in his parching field 

The husbandman for rain. 

We pray in vain ! 
The sullen sky flings down its blaze of brass ; 
The joys of life all scorched and withering pass ; 

I shall not weep again. 



ON THE BLUFF. 

S~\ GRANDLY flowing River! 

O silver-gliding River ! 
Thy springing willows shiver 

In the sunset as of old ; 
They shiver in the silence 
Of the willow-whitened islands, 
While the sun-bars and the sand-bars 

Fill air and wave with gold. 

O gay, oblivious River ! 
O sunset-kindled River ! 
Do you remember ever 

The eyes and skies so blue 



ON THE BLUFF. 21 1 

On a summer day that shone here, 
When we were all alone here, 
And the blue eyes were too wise 
To speak the love they knew ? 

O stern impassive River ! 
O still unanswering River ! 
The shivering willows quiver 

As the night-winds moan and rave. 
From the past a voice is calling, 
From heaven a star is falling, 
And dew swells in the bluebells 

Above her hillside grave. 



UNA. 



T N" the whole wide world there was but one, 

Others for others, but she was mine, 
The one fair woman beneath the sun. 



From her gold-flax curls' most marvellous shine 
Down to the lithe and delicate feet 
There was not a curve nor a waving line 

But moved in a harmony firm and sweet 
With all of passion my life could know. 
By knowledge perfect and faith complete 

I was bound to her, — as the planets go 
Adoring around their central star, 
Free, but united for weal or woe. 



UNA. 213 

She was so near and Heaven so far — 
She grew my heaven and law and fate 
Rounding my life with a mystic bar 

No thought beyond could violate. 

Our love to fulness in silence nursed 

Grew calm as morning, when through the gate 

Of the glimmering East the sun has burst, 
With his hot life filling the waiting air. 
She kissed me once, — that last and first 

Of her maiden kisses was placid as prayer. 

Against all comers I sat with lance 

In rest, and, drunk with my joy, I sware 

Defiance and scorn to the world's worst chance. 

In vain ! for soon unhorsed I lay 

At the feet of the strong god Circumstance — 



214 



UNA. 



And never again shall break the day, 

And never again shall fall the night 

That shall light me, or shield me, on my way 

To the presence of my sad soul's delight. 
Her dead love comes like a passionate ghost 
To mourn the Body it held so light, 

And Fate, like a hound with a purpose lost, 
Goes round bewildered with shame and fright. 



HP H ROUGH the long days and years 
What will my loved one be, 
Parted from me ? 
Through the long days and years. 

Always as then she was 

Loveliest, brightest, best, 
Blessing and blest, — 
Always as then she was. 

Never on earth again 

Shall I before her stand, 

Touch lip or hand, — 
Never on earth again. 



216 "through the long days and years." 

But while my darling lives 

Peaceful I journey on, 
Not quite alone, 
Not while my darling lives. 



A PHYLACTERY, 

A T 7ISE men I hold those rakes of old 
Who, as we read in antique story, 
When lyres were struck and wine was poured, 
Set the white Death's Head on the board — 
Memento mori. 

Love well ! love truly ! and love fast ! 

True love evades the dilatory. 
Life's bloom flares like a meteor past ; 
A joy so dazzling cannot last — 
Memento mori. 

Stop not to pluck the leaves of bay 
That greenly deck the path of glory, 



2l8 A PHYLACTERY. 

The wreath will wither if you stay, 
So pass along your earnest way — 
Memento mori. 

Hear but not heed, though wild and shrill, 

The cries of faction transitory; 
Cleave to your good, eschew your ill, 
A Hundred Years and all is still — 
Memento mori. 

When Old Age comes with muffled drums, 
That beat to sleep our tired life's story, 
On thoughts of dying, (Rest is good ! ) 
Like old snakes coiled i' the sun, we brood - 
Memento mori. 



BLONDINE. 

T WANDERED through a careless world 

Deceived when not deceiving, 
And never gave an idle heart 

The rapture of believing. 
The smiles, the sighs, the glancing eyes, 

Of many hundred comers 
Swept by me, light as rose-leaves blown 

From long-forgotten summers. 

But never eyes so deep and bright 

And loyal in their seeming, 
And never smiles so full of light 

Have shone upon my dreaming. 



220 BLONDINE. 

The looks and lips so gay and wise, 

The thousand charms that wreathe them, 

— Almost I dare believe that truth 
Is safely shrined beneath them. 

Ah ! do they shine, those eyes of thine, 

But for our own misleading ? 
The fresh young smile, so pure and* fine, 

Does it but mock our reading ? 
Then faith is fled, and trust is dead, 

And unbelief grows duty, 
If fraud can wield the triple arm 

Of youth and wit and beauty. 



DISTICHES. 

i. 
\ T 7ISELY a woman prefers to a lover a man 
who neglects her. 
This one may love her some day, some day the 
lover will not. 

ii. 

There are three species of creatures who when 
they seem coming are going, 
When they seem going they come : Diplomates, 
women, and crabs. 

in. 

Pleasures too hastily tasted grow sweeter in fond 
recollection, 



222 DISTICHS. 

As the pomegranate plucked green ripens far 
over the sea. 

IV. 

As the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking 
for Adam to name them, 
Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a 
king. 

v. 
What is a first love worth, except to prepare for a 
second ? 
What does the second love bring ? Only regret 
for the first. 

VI. 

Health was wooed by the Romans in groves of 
the laurel and myrtle. 
Happy and long are the lives brightened by 
glory and love. 



DISTICHS. 223 

VII. 

Wine is like rain : when it falls on the mire it 
but makes it the fouler, 
But when it strikes the good soil wakes it to 
beauty and bloom. 

VIII. 

Break not the rose ; its fragrance and beauty are 
surely sufficient : 
Resting contented with these, never a thorn 
shall you feel. 

IX. 

When you break up housekeeping, you learn the 
extent of your treasures ; 
Till he begins to reform, no one can number 
his sins. 



224 DISTICHS. 

X. 

Maidens ! why should you worry in choosing whom 
you shall marry ? 
Choose whom you may, you will find you have 
got somebody else. 

XI. 

Unto each man comes a day when his favorite 
sins all forsake him, 
And he complacently thinks he has forsaken 
his sins. 

XII. 

Be not too anxious to gain your next-door neigh- 
bor's approval : 
Live your own life, and let him strive your ap- 
proval to gain. 



DJSTICHS. 225 

XIII. 

Who would succeed in the world should be wise 
in the use of his pronouns. 
Utter the You twenty times, where you once 
utter the I. 

XIV. 

The best loved man or maid in the town would 
perish with anguish 
Could they hear all that their friends say in 
the course of a day. 

xv. 
True luck consists not in holding the best of the 
cards at the table : 
Luckiest he who knows just when to rise and 
go home. 



226 DISTICHS. 

XVI. 

Pleasant enough it is to hear the world speak of 
your virtues ; 
But in your secret heart 'tis of your faults you 
are proud. 

XVII. 

Try not to beat back the current, yet be not 
drowned in its waters ; 
Speak with the speech of the world, think with 
the thoughts of the few. 

XVIII. 

Make all good men your well-wishers, and then, 
in the years' steady sifting, 
Some of them turn into friends. Friends are 
the sunshine of life. 



REGARDANT. ■ 



A S I lay at your feet that afternoon, 

Little we spoke, — you sat and mused, 
Humming a sweet old-fashioned tune, 



And I worshipped you, with a sense confused 
Of the good time gone and the bad on the way, 
While my hungry eyes your face perused 

To catch and brand on my soul for aye 
The subtle smile which had grown my doom. 
Drinking sweet poison hushed I lay 

Till the sunset shimmered athwart the room. 

I rose to go. You stood so fair 

And dim in the dead day's tender gloom: 



22 3 REGARDANT. 

All at once, or ever I was aware, 

Flashed from you on me a warm strong wave 

Of passion and power ; in the silence there 

I fell on my knees, like a lover, or slave, 

With my wild hands clasping your slender waist ; 

And my lips, with a sudden frenzy brave, 

A madman's kiss on your girdle pressed, 
And I felt your calm heart's quickening beat, 
And your soft hands on me one instant rest. 

And if God had loved me, how endlessly sweet 
Had he let my heart in its rapture burst, 
And throb its last at your firm small feet ! 

And wnen*I was forth, I shuddered at first 
At my imminent bliss. As a soul in pain, 
Treading his desolate path accursed, 



REGARDANT, 229 

Looks back and dreams through his tears' dim 

rain 
That by Heaven's wide gate the angels smile, 
Relenting, and beckon him back again, 

And goes on, thrice damned by that devil's wile, — 

So sometimes burns in my weary brain 

The thought that you loved me all the while. 



GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 

P\OWN the dim West slow fails the stricken 

sun, 
And from his hot face fades the crimson flush 
Veiled in death's herald-shadows sick and gray. 
Silent and dark the sombre valley lies 
Forgotten ; happy in the late fond beams 
Glimmer the constant waves of Galilee. 
Afar, below, in airy music ring 
The bugles of my host ; the column halts, 
A wearied serpent glittering in the vale, 
Where rising mist-like gleam the tented camps. 

Pitch my pavilion here, where its high cross 
May catch the last light lingering on the hill. 



GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 23 I 

The savage shadows, struggling by the shore, 

Have conquered in the valley ; inch by inch 

The vanquished light fights bravely to these crags 

To perish glorious in the sunset fire ; 

Even as our hunted Cause so pressed and torn 

In Syrian valleys, and the trampled marge 

Of consecrated streams, displays at last 

Its narrowing glories from these steadfast walls. 

Here in God's name we stand, and brighter far 

Shines the stern virtue of my martyr-host 

Through these invidious fortunes, than of old, 

When the still sunshine glinted on their helms, 

And dallying breezes woke their bridle-bells 

To tinkling music by the reedy shore 

Of calm Tiberias, where our angry Lord, 

Wroth at the deadly sin that cursed our camp, 

Denied and blinded us, and gave us up 



232 GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 

To the avenging sword of Saladin. 

Yet would he not permit his truth to sink 

To utter loss amid that foundering fight, 

But led us, scarred and shattered from the spoil 

Of Paynim rage, the desert's thirsty death, 

To where beneath the sheltering crags we prayed 

And rested and grew strong. Heroes and saints 

To alien peoples shall they be, my brave 

And patient warriors ; for in their stout hearts 

God's spirit dwells forever, and their hands 

Are swift to do his service on his foes. 

The swelling music of their vesper-hymn 

Is rising fragrant from the shadowed vale 

Familiar to the welcoming gates of heaven 

Mother of God! as evening falls 
Upon the silent sea, 



GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 233 

And shadows veil the mountain walls, 

We lift our souls to thee ! 
Fro7n lurking perils of the night. 

The desert's hidden harms, 
From plagues that waste, from blasts that smite, 
Defend thy men-at-arms ! 

Ay ! Heaven keep them ! and ye angel-hosts 
That wait with fluttering plumes around the great 
White throne of God, guard them from scathe and 

harm ! 
For in your starry records never shone 
The memory of desert so great as theirs. 
I hold not first, though peerless else on earth, 
That knightly valor, born of gentle blood 
And war's long tutelage, which hath made their 

name 



234 GUY 0F THE TEMPLE « 

Blaze like a baleful planet o'er these lands ; 

Firm seat in saddle, lance unmoved, a hand 

Wedding the hilt with death's persistent grasp ; 

One-minded rush in fight that naught can stay. 

Not these the highest, though I scorn not these, 

But rather offer Heaven with humble heart 

The deeds that heaven hath given us arms to do. 

For when God's smile was with us we were strong 

To go like sudden lightning to our mark : 

As on that summer day when Saladin — 

Passing in scorn our host at Antiocb, 

Who spent the days in revel, and shamed the stars 

With nightly scandal — came with all his host, 

Its gay battalia brave with saffron silks, 

Flaunting the banners of the Caliphate 

Beneath the walls of fair Jerusalem : 

And white and shaking came the Leper-King, 



GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 235 

Great Baldwin's blasted scion, and Tripoli 
And I, and twenty score of Temple Knights, 
To meet the myriads marshalled by the bright 
Untarnished flower of Eastern chivalry ; 
A moment paused with level-fronting spears 
And moveless helms before that shining host, 
Whose gay attire abashed the morning light, 
And then struck spur and charged, while from the 

mass 
Of rushing terror burst the awful cry, 
God and the Temple ! As the avalanche slides 
Down Alpine slopes, precipitous, cold and dark, 
Unpitying and unwrathful, grinds and crushes 
The mountain violets and the valley weeds, 
And drags behind a trail of chaos and death ; 
So burst we on that field, and through and through 
The gay battalia brave with saffron silks, 



236 GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 

Crushed and abolished every grace and gleam, 
And dragged where'er we rode a sinuous track 
Of chaos and death, till all the plain was filled 
With battered armor, turbaned trunkless heads, 
With silken mantles blushing angry gules 
And Bagdad's banners trampled and forlorn. 
And Saladin, stunned and bewildered sore, — 
The greatest prince, save in the grace of God, 
That now wears sword, — mounted his brother's barb, 
And, followed by a half-score followers, 
Sped to his castle Shaubec, over against 
The cliffs by Ascalon, and there abode: 
And sullenly made order that no more 
The royal nouba should be played for him 
Until he should erase the rusting stain 
Upon his knightly honor ; and no more 
The nouba sounded by the Sultan's tent, 



GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 237 

Morning nor evening by the silent tent, 
Until the headlong greed of Chatillon 
Spread ruin on our cause from Montreale. 
But greatest are my warriors, as I deem, 
In that their hearts, nearer than any else 
Keep true the pledge of perfect purity 
They pledged upon their sword-hilts long ago. 
For all is possible to the pure in heart. 

Mother of God ! thy starry smile 

Still bless its from above ! 
Keep pare our souls from passion's guile. 

Our hearts from earthly love ! 
Still save each soul from guilt apart 

As stainless as each sword, 
And guard undimmed in every heart 

The image of our Lord ! 



238 GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 

O goodliest fellowship that the world has known, 

True hearts and stalwart arms ! above your breasts 

Glitters no flash of wreathen amulet 

Forged against sword-stroke by the chanted rhythm 

Of charms accurst ; but in each steadfast heart 

Blazes the light of cloudless purity, 

That like a splendid jewel glorifies 

With restless fire the gold that spheres it round, 

And marks you children of our God, whose lives 

He guards with the awful jealousy of love. 

And even me that generous love has spared, — 

Me, trustless knight and miserable man, — 

Sad prey of dark and mutinous thoughts that 

tempt 
My sick soul into perjury and death — 
Since his great love had pity of my pain, 
Has spared to lead these blameless warriors safe 



GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 239 

Into the desert from the blazing towns, 

Out of the desert to the inviolate hills 

Where God has roofed them with his hollow 

shield. 
Through all these days of tempest and eclipse 
His hand has led me and his wrath has flashed 
Its lightnings in the pathway of my sword. 
And so I hope, and so my crescent faith 
Gains daily power, that all my prayers and tears 
And toils and blood and anguish borne for him 
May blot the accusing of my deadly sin 
From heaven's high compt, and give me rest in 

death ; 
And lay the pallid ghost of mortal love, 
That fills with banned and mournful loveliness, 
Unblest, the haunted chambers of my soul. 
My misery will atone, — my misery, — 



24O GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 

Dear God, will surely atone ! for not the sting 
Of macerating thongs, nor the slow horror 
Of crowns of thorny iron maddening the brows, 
Nor all that else pale hermits have devised 
To scourge the rebel senses in their shade 
Of caverned desolation, have the power 
To smart and goad and lash and mortify 
Like the great love that binds my ruined heart 
Relentless, as the insidious ivy binds 
The shattered bulk of some deserted tower, 
Enlacing slow and riving with strong hands 
Of pitiless verdure every seam and jut, 
Till none may tear it forth and save the tower. 
So binds and masters me my hopeless love. 
So through the desert, in the silent hills, 
r the current of the battle's storm and stress, 
One thought has driven me, — that though men 
may call 



GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 24 1 

Me stainless Paladin, Knight leal and true 
To Christ and Our Lady, still I know myself 
A knight not after God's own heart, a soul 
Recreant, and whelmed in the forbidden sin. 
For dearer to my sad heart than the cross 
I give my heart's best blood for are the eyes 
That long ago, when youth and hope were mine, 
I loved in thy still valleys, far Provence ! 
And sweeter to my spirit than the bells 
Of rescued Salem are the loving tones 
Of her dear voice, soft echoing o'er the years. 
They haunt me in the stillness and the glare 
Of desert noontide when the horizon's line 
Swims faintly throbbing, and my shadow hides 
Skulking beneath me from the brassy sky. 
And when night comes to soothe with breath of 
balm 



242 GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 

And pomp of stars the worn and weary world, 
Her eyes rise in my soul and make its day. 
And even into the battle comes my love, 
Snatching the duty that I offer Heaven. 

At closing of El-Majed's awful day, 
When the last quivering sunbeams, choked with dust 
And fume of blood, failed on the level plain, 
In the last charge, when gathered all our knights 
The precious handful who from morn had stemmed 
The fury of the multitudinous hosts 
Of Islam, where in youth's hot fire and pride 
Ramped the young lion-whelp, Ben-Saladin ; 
As down the slope we rode at eventide, 
The dying sunlight faintly smiled to greet 
Our tattered guidons and our dinted helms 
And lance-heads blooming with the battle's rose. 
Into the vale, dusk with the shadow of death, 



GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 243 

With silent lips and ringing mail we rode. 
And something in the spirit of the hour, 
Or fate, or memory, or sorrow, or sin, 
Or love, which unto me is all of these, 
Possessed and bound me ; for when dashed our troop 
In stormy clangor on the Paynim lines 
The soul of my dead youth came into me ; 
Faded away my oath ; the woes of Zion, 
God was forgot ; blazed in my leaping heart, 
With instant flash, life's inextinguished fires ; 
Plunging along each tense limb poured the blood 
Hot with its years of sleeping-smothered flame. 
And in a dream I charged, and in a dream 
I smote resistless ; foemen in my path 
Fell unregarded, like the wayside flowers 
Clipped by the truant's staff in. daisied lanes. 
For over me burned lustrous the dear eyes 



244 GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 

Of my beloved ; I strove as at a joust 

To gain at end the guerdon of her smile. 

And ever, as in the dense melee I dashed, 

Her name burst from my lips, as lightning breaks 

Out of the plunging wrack of summer storms. 

my lost love ! Bright o'er the waste of years — 
That bliss and beauty shines upon my soul ; 

As far beyond yon desert hangs the sun, 
Gilding with tender beam the barren stretch 
Of sands that intervene. In this still light 
The old sweet memories glimmer back to me. 
Fair summers of my youth, — the idle days 

1 wandered in the bosky coverts hid 

In the dim woods that girt my ancient home ; 
The blue young eyes I met and worshipped there; 
The love that growing turned those gloomy wilds 



GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 245 

To frery dells, and filled the vernal air 

With light that bathed the hills of Paradise ; 

The warm, long days of rapturous summer-time, 

When through the forests thick and lush we strayed. 

And love made our own sunshine in the shades. 

And all things fair and graceful in the woods 

I loved with liberal heart ; the violets 

Were dear for her dear eyes, the quiring birds 

That caught the musical tremble of her voice. 

O happy twilights in the leafy glooms ! 

When in the glowing dusk the winsome arts 

And maiden graces that all day had kept 

Us twain and separate melted away 

In blushing silence, and my love was mine 

Utterly, utterly, with clinging arms 

And quick, caressing fingers, warm red lips, 

Where vows, half uttered, drowned in kisses, died ; 



246 GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 

Mine, with the starlight in her passionate eyes ; 
The wild wind of the woodland breathing low 
To wake the elfin music of the leaves, 
And free the prisoned odors of the flowers, 
In honor of young Love come to his throne ! 
While we under the stars, with twining arms 
And mutual lips insatiate, gave our souls — 
Madly forgetting earth and heaven — to love ! 

In desert march or battles flame. 

In fortress and in field. 
Our war-cry is thy holy name. 

Thy love our joy and shield ! 
And if we falter, let thy power 

Thy stern avenger be, 
And God forget us in the hour 

We cease to think of thee / 



GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 247 

Curse me not, God of Justice and of Love ! 
Pitiful God, let my long woe atone ! 

I cannot deem but God has pitied me ; 

Else why with painful care have I been saved, 

Whenever tossed and drenched in the fierce tide 

Of Saladin's victories by the walls profaned 

Of Jaffa, on the sands of far Daroum, 

Or in the battle thundering on the downs 

Of Ramlah, or the bloody day that shed 

Red horrors on high Gaza's parapets ? 

For never a storm of fatal fight has raged 

In Islam's track of rout and ruin swept 

From Egypt to Gebail, but when the ebb 

Of battle came I and my host have lain, 

Scarfed, scorched, safe somewhere on its fiery shore. 

At Marcab's lingering siege, where day by day 



248 GUY OF THE TEMPLE, 

We told the Moslem legions toiling slow, 

Planting their engines, delving in their mines 

To quench in our destruction this last light 

Of Christendom, our fortress in the crags, 

God's beacon swung defiant from the stars ; 

One thunderous night I knew their miners groped 

Below, and thought ere morn to die, in crush 

And tumult of the falling citadel. 

And pondering of my fate — the broken storm 

Sobbing its life away. — I was aware 

There grew between me and the quieting skies 

A face and form I knew, — not as in dreams, 

The sad dishevelled loveliness of earth, 

But lighter than the thin air where she swayed, — 

Gold hair flame-fluttered, eyes and mouth aglow 

With lambent light of spiritual joy. 

With sweet command she beckoned me away 



GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 249 

And led me vaguely dreaming, till I saw 
Where the wild flood in sudden fury had burst 
A passage through the rocks : and thence I led 
My host unharmed, following her luminous eyes, 
Until the East was gray, and with a smile 
Wooing me heavenward still she passed away 
Into the rosy trouble of the dawn. 

And I believe my love is shrived in heaven, 
And I believe that I shall soon be free. 

For ever, as I journey on, to me 

Waking or sleeping come faint whisperings 

And fancies not of earth, as if the gates 

Of near eternity stood for me ajar, 

And ghostly gales come blowing o'er my soul 

Fraught with the amaranth odors of the skies. 

I go to join the Lion-Heart at Acre, 



25O GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 

And there, after due homage to my liege, 
And after patient penance of the church, 
And after final devoir in the fight, 
If that my God be gracious, I shall die. 
And so I pray — Lord pardon if I sin ! — 
That I may lose in death's imbittered wave, 
The stain of sinful loving, and may find 
In glory again the love I lost below, 
With all of fair and bright and unattained, 
Beautiful in the cherishing smile of God, 
By the glad waters of the River of Life ! 

Night hangs above the valley ; dies the day 
In peace, casting his last glance on my cross, 
And warns me to my prayers. Ave Maria ! 
Mother of God ! the evening fades 
On wave and hill and lea, 



GUY OF THE TEMPLE. 2$ I 

And in the tzvilighfs deepening shades 

We lift our souls to thee ! 
In passions stress — the battles strife^ 

The deserfs lurking harms, 
Maid-Mother of the Lord of Life y 

Protect thy men-at-arms ! 



TRANSLATIONS. 



THE WAY TO HEAVEN. 

FROM THE GERMAN. 

/^~\NE day the Sultan, grand and grim, 
Ordered the Mufti brought to him. 
" Now let thy wisdom solve for me 
The question I shall put to thee. 

" The different tribes beneath my sway 
Four several sects of priests obey ; 
Now tell me which of all the four 
Is on the path to Heaven's door." 

The Sultan spake, and then was dumb. 
The Mufti looked about the room, 



256 THE WAY TO HEAVEN. 

And straight made answer to his lord, 
Fearing the bowstring at each word : 

"Thou, godlike in thy lofty birth, 
Who art our Allah upon earth, 
Illume me with thy favoring ray, 
And I will answer as I may. 

" Here, where thou thronest in thy hall, 
I see there are four doors in all ; 
And through all four thy slaves may gaze 
Upon the brightness of thy face. 

"That I came hither safely through 
Was to thy gracious message due, 
And, blinded by thy splendor's flame, 
I cannot tell the way I came." 



COUNTESS JUTTA. 

FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINRICH HEINE. 

r T^HE Countess Jutta passed over the Rhine 

In a light canoe by the moon's pale shine. 
The handmaid rows and the Countess speaks : 
" Seest thou not there where the water breaks 

Seven corpses swim 

In the moonlight dim ? 
So sorrowful swim the dead ! 

u They were seven knights full of fire and youth, 
They sank on my heart and swore me truth. 
I trusted them ; but for Truth's sweet sake, 



258 COUNTESS JUTTA. 

Lest they should be tempted their oaths to break, 

I had them bound, 

And tenderly drowned ! 
So sorrowful swim the dead ! " 

The merry Countess laughed outright ! 
It rang so wild in the startled night ! 
Up to the waist the dead men rise 
And stretch lean fingers to the skies. 

They ncd and stare 

With a glassy glare ! 
So sorrowful swim the dead 1 



A BLESSING. 

AFTER HEINE. 

TI 7HEN I look on thee and feel how dear, 

How pure, and how fair thou art, 
Into my eyes there steals a tear, 
And a shadow mingled of love and fear 
Creeps slowly over my heart. 

And my very hands feel as if they would lay 

Themselves on thy fair young head, 
And pray the good God to keep thee alway 
As good and lovely, as pure and gay, — 
When I and my wild love are dead. 



TO THE YOUNG. 



AFTER HEINE. 



T ET your feet not falter, your course not al- 
ter 

By golden apples, till victory's won! 
The sword's sharp clangor, the dart's shrill anger, 

Swerve not the hero thundering on. 

A bold beginning is half the winning, 
An Alexander makes worlds his fee. 

No long debating ! The Queens are waiting 
In his pavilion on bended knee. 



TO THE YOUNG. 26 1 

Thus swift pursuing his wars and wooing, 
He mounts old Darius' bed and throne. 

O glorious ruin ! O blithe undoing ! 
O drunk death-triumph in Babylon ! 



THE GOLDEN CALF. 

AFTER HEINE. 

TROUBLE flutes and horns resound 
As they dance the idol round ; 
Jacob's daughters, madly reeling, 
Whirl about the golden calf. 
Hear them laugh ! 
Kettledrums and laughter pealing. 

Dresses tucked above their knees, 
Maids of noblest families, 
In the swift dance blindly wheeling, 
Circle in their wild career 
Round the steer, — 
Kettledrums and laughter pealing. 



THE GOLDEN CALF. 263 

Aaron's self, the guardian gray 
Of the faith, at last gives way, 
Madness all his senses stealing ; 
Prances in his high priest's coat 
Like a goat, — 
Kettledrums and laughter pealing. 



THE AZRA. 



AFTER HEINE. 



T^VAILY walked the fair and lovely 

Sultan's daughter in the twilight,* 
In the twilight by the fountain, 
Where the sparkling waters plash. 

Daily stood the young slave silent 
In the twilight by the fountain, 
Where the plashing waters sparkle, 
Pale and paler every day. 

Once by twilight came the princess 
Up to him with rapid questions : 



THE AZRA. 265 

" I would know thy name, thy nation, 
Whence thou comest, who thou art." 

And the young slave said, " My name is 
Mahomet, I come from Yemmen. 
I am of the sons of Azra, 
Men who perish if they love." 



GOOD AND BAD LUCK. 

AFTER HEINE. 

S~^ OOD LUCK is the gayest of all gay girls, 

Long in one place she will not stay, 
Back from your brow she strokes the curls, 
Kisses you quick and flies away. 

But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes 

And stays, — no fancy has she for flitting, — 

Snatches of true love-songs she hums, 

And sits by your bed, and brings her knitting. 



L 'AMOUR DU MENSONGE. 

AFTER CHARLES BAUDELAIRE. 

\T 7HEN I behold thee, O my indolent love, 

To the sound of ringing brazen melodies, 
Through garish halls harmoniously move, 

Scattering a scornful light from languid eyes ; 

When I see, smitten by the blazing lights, 

Thy pale front, beauteous in its bloodless glow 

As the faint fires that deck the Northern nights, 
And eyes that draw me wheresoe'er I go ; 

I say, She is fair, too coldly strange for speech ; 
A crown of memories, her calm brow above, 



268 l'amour du mensonge. 

Shines ; and her heart is like a bruised red peach, 
Ripe as her body for intelligent love. 

Art thou late fruit of spicy savor and scent ? 

A funeral vase awaiting tearful showers ? 
An Eastern odor, waste and oasis blent ? 

A silken cushion or a bank of flowers ? 

I know there are eyes of melancholy sheen 

To which no passionate secrets e'er were given ; 

Shrines where no god or saint has ever been, 
As deep and empty as the vault of Heaven. 

But what care I if this be all pretense ? 

Twill serve a heart that seeks for truth no more. 
All one thy folly or indifference, — 

Hail, lovely mask, thy beauty I adore ! 



AMOR MYSTICUS. 

FROM THE SPANISH OF SOR MARCELA DE CARPIO. 

T ET them say to my Lever 

That here I lie ! 
The thing of His pleasure, 
His slave am I. 

Say that I seek Him 

Only for love, 
And welcome are tortures 

My passion to prove. 

Love giving gifts 

Is suspicious and cold ; 



27O AMOR MYSTICUS. 

I have all, my Beloved, 
When Thee I hold. 

Hope and devotion 

The good may gain ; 

I am but worthy 

Of passion and pain. 

So noble a Lord 

None serves in vain, 

For the pay of my love 

Is my love's sweet pain. 

I love! Thee, to love Thee, — 
No more I desire ; 

By faith is nourished 

My love's strong fire. 



AMOR MYSTICUS. 27 1 

I kiss Thy hands 

When I feel their blows ; 
In the place of caresses 
'Thou givest me woes. 

But in Thy chastising 

Is joy and peace. 
O Master and Love, 

Let Thy blows not cease. 

Thy beauty, Beloved, 

With scorn is rife, 
But I know that Thou lovest me 

Better than life. 

And because Thou lovest me, 
Lover of mine, 



272 AMOR MYSTICUS. 

Death can but make me 
Utterly Thine. 

I die with longing 
Thy face to see ; 

Oh ! sweet is the anguish 
Of death to me! 



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